Matthieu Vaxiviere has beaten Toyota to take Alpine’s first overall pole position in the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Vaxiviere just outpaced the pair of Mike Conway and Brendon Hartley in his #36 Alpine A480-Gibson by posting a time of 01:30:364.
It was a late improvement on what was already looking like a fast time, but in the end it proved vital as he outpaced the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Conway by just 0.094s and Hartley’s #8 Toyota by 0.176s.
Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus had a difficult time during its first qualifying outing in the WEC, as Richard Westbrook failed to post a competitive lap time in the #709 007 LMH. His best effort, a 01:32:167, was 1.8 seconds removed from pole position and fell behind the majority of LMP2 teams.
Pole for the secondary prototype class was decided between the two JOTA cars, with Tom Blomqvist ultimately coming out on top.
The Briton secured class pole with a late 01:31:210 in the #28 ORECA 07-Gibson, which was a mere 0.045s faster than stablemate Antonio Felix da Costa aboard the #38 sister ORECA.
Behind them, it was the #29 Racing Team Nederland ORECA 07-Gibson of Job van Uitert in third place, ahead of Paul di Resta in the #22 United Autosports ORECA in fourth.
Robin Frijns and Alex Brundle took fifth and sixth for Team WRT and Inter Europol Competition respectively, while Norman Nato’s #70 Realteam Racing ORECA was eighth and the final LMP2 to lap faster than the Glickenhaus Hypercar.
