Le Mans 24 Hours: Ferrari tops first qualifying, Hyperpole spots decided

Moments after Alessandro Pier Guidi set an impressive 3m25.412s in the #51 Ferrari 499P with around 15 minutes to go, despite getting slightly held up later in the lap by a GTE Am Aston, he was usurped by the sister #50 car of Antonio Fuoco - who posted a 3m25.213s to grab the top spot.

The early pace was set by the #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, who put in a 3m25.485s right at the very start of the session - which ultimately left him 0.3s behind the Ferraris, and fractionally ahead of Brendon Hartley in the sister #8 GR010 HYBRID.

Next up in the two-by-two formation from the leading manufacturers were two of the Porsche 963 LMDhs, Frederic Makowiecki in the #5 heading Felipe Nasr in the #75 as both were 0.6s behind the Ferraris.

The final two cars from the Hypercar class to make it through to the eight-car Hyperpole shootout on Thursday were the two Cadillac Racing V-Series.R LMDhs - Sebastien Bourdais in the #3, just ahead of Earl Bamber in the #2 and both less than a second off the pace.

Kevin Estre's #6 Porsche was the first car to miss out and will therefore start ninth - having missed the cut-off by almost a second.

He was in turn nearly half a second ahead of Mikkel Jensen in the best of the Peugeot 9X8 LMHs, who was a further 0.5s faster than team-mate Loic Duval.

The 16-car Hypercar field was then rounded out by the Action Express Caddy, the two Glickenhaus machines and the Vanwall Vandervell 680.

Antonio Fuoco, Ferrari AF Corse celebrates provisional pole (Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt)

The Jota-entered Porsche 963 did not set a time in the session and will therefore start last following an electronic issue.

The hour-long qualifying segment began with two early red flags, the first caused by a collision between the #22 United Autosports LMP2 machine of Filipe Albuquerque and the #36 Alpine-run ORECA of Matthieu Vaxiviere when they were jostling for position into the final chicane.

The session had only just been restarted when it was halted again, this time by the #37 Cool Racing LMP2 entry of Malthe Jakobsen skating into the Indianapolis barriers.

For the majority of the session, the LMP2 leaderboard was headed by the #28 Jota entry of Pietro Fittipaldi, his 3m34.751s good enough to beat the #41 WRT-entered ORECA of Louis Deletraz by just two-thousandths of a second.

There was a far larger gap of 0.04s back to the next of the cars, the #63 Prema ORECA of Mirko Bortolotti, who had been the initial pacesetter. 

However, there was late drama in the GTE Am leaderboard.

Charlie Eastwood's TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage had topped the times for much of the hour before a flurry of late improvements.

#83 Richard Mille Af Corse Ferrari 488 GTE EVO of Luis Perez Companc, Alessio Rovera, Lilou Wadoux (Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt)

First up, with just four minutes to go, Nicky Catsburg in the sole Corvette C8.R emerged from the pits following repairs after Nico Varrone's Tertre Rouge practice crash to shoot to the top of the times on his very first flying lap.

But he was shuffled back to an eventual third following a pair of late efforts from Ferrari drivers.

Davide Rigon in the #54 AF Corse 488 looked to have snared top spot before he was pipped by the #83 Richard-Mille-backed sister car of Alessio Rovera moments after the chequered flag went out.

Cars progressing to Hyperpole:

Hypercar

#50 Ferrari AF Corse
#51 Ferrari AF Corse
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing
#5 Porsche Penske Motorsport
#75 Porsche Penske Motorsport
#3 Cadillac Racing 
#2 Cadillac Racing 

LMP2

#28 JOTA
#41 Team WRT
#63 Prema Racing
#48 IDEC Sport
#10 Vector Sport
#47 COOL Racing
#923 Racing Team Turkey 
#9 Prema Racing

GTE Am

#83 Richard Mille AF Corse
#54 AF Corse
#33 Corvette Racing
#25 ORT by TF
#57 Kessel Racing
#55 GMB Motorsport
#21 AF Corse
#74 Kessel Racing

Le Mans 24 Hours - first qualifying results:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	50	Antonio Fuoco  Miguel Molina  Nicklas Nielsen	Ferrari 499P	Hypercar	3'25.213
2	51	James Calado  Antonio Giovinazzi  Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 499P	Hypercar	3'25.412	0.199
3	7	Mike Conway  Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	Hypercar	3'25.485	0.272
4	8	Sebastien Buemi  Brendon Hartley  Ryo Hirakawa	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	Hypercar	3'25.749	0.536
5	5	Dane Cameron  Michael Christensen  Frédéric Makowiecki	Porsche 963	Hypercar	3'25.848	0.635
6	75	Mathieu Jaminet  Felipe Nasr  Nick Tandy	Porsche 963	Hypercar	3'25.868	0.655
7	3	Sebastien Bourdais  Scott Dixon  Renger van der Zande	Cadillac V-Series.R	Hypercar	3'25.924	0.711
8	2	Earl Bamber  Alex Lynn  Richard Westbrook	Cadillac V-Series.R	Hypercar	3'26.020	0.807
9	6	Kevin Estre  Andre Lotterer  Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche 963	Hypercar	3'26.900	1.687
10	93	Paul di Resta  Mikkel Jensen  Jean-Eric Vergne	Peugeot 9X8	Hypercar	3'27.260	2.047
11	94	Loïc Duval  Gustavo Menezes  Nico Müller	Peugeot 9X8	Hypercar	3'27.850	2.637
12	311	Jack Aitken  Pipo Derani  Alexander Sims	Cadillac V-Series.R	Hypercar	3'27.960	2.747
13	708	Ryan Briscoe  Romain Dumas  Olivier Pla	Glickenhaus 007 LMH	Hypercar	3'28.497	3.284
14	709	Nathanaël Berthon  Esteban Gutierrez  Franck Mailleux	Glickenhaus 007 LMH	Hypercar	3'28.612	3.399
15	4	Tom Dillmann  Esteban Guerrieri  Tristan Vautier	Vanwall Vandervell 680	Hypercar	3'29.745	4.532
16	28	Pietro Fittipaldi  David Heinemeier Hansson  Oliver Rasmussen	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.751	9.538
17	41	Rui Andrade  Louis Deletraz  Robert Kubica	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.753	9.540
18	63	Mirko Bortolotti  Daniil Kvyat  Doriane Pin	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.793	9.580
19	48	Paul Loup Chatin  Laurents Hörr  Paul Lafargue	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.839	9.626
20	10	Gabriel Aubry  Ryan Cullen  Matthias Kaiser	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'34.985	9.772
21	47	Reshad de Gerus  Vlad Lomko  Simon Pagenaud	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.105	9.892
22	923	Tom Gamble  Dries Vanthoor  Salih Yoluc	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.176	9.963
23	9	Juan Manuel Correa  Filip Ugran  Bent Viscaal	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.392	10.179
24	14	Mathias Beche  Ben Hanley  Rodrigo Sales	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.453	10.240
25	23	Tom Blomqvist  Oliver Jarvis  Josh Pierson	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.519	10.306
26	45	James Allen  Colin Braun  George Kurtz	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.578	10.365
27	22	Filipe Albuquerque  Philip Hanson  Frederick Lubin	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.587	10.374
28	39	Giedo van der Garde  Roberto Lacorte  Patrick Pilet	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.652	10.439
29	65	Tijmen van der Helm  Manuel Maldonado  Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.691	10.478
30	34	Albert Costa  Fabio Scherer  Jakub Smiechowski	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.755	10.542
31	31	Robin Frijns  Sean Gelael  Ferdinand Habsburg	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.853	10.640
32	43	Maxime Martin  Tom van Rompuy  Ugo De Wilde	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'35.951	10.738
33	37	Alexandre Coigny  Malthe Jakobsen  Nicolas Lapierre	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.271	11.058
34	80	Ben Barnicoat  Norman Nato  François Perrodo	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'36.483	11.270
35	30	Rene Binder  Neel Jani  Nicolas Pino	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'37.213	12.000
36	35	Olli Caldwell  André Negrão  Memo Rojas	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'37.498	12.285
37	32	Anders Fjordbach  Mark Kvamme  Jan Magnussen	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'39.303	14.090
38	24	Jenson Button  Jimmie Johnson  Mike Rockenfeller	Chevrolet Camaro ZL1	INNOVATIVE CAR	3'47.976	22.763
39	54	Francesco Castellacci  Thomas Flohr  Davide Rigon	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'51.914	26.701
40	33	Nicky Catsburg  Ben Keating  Nicolas Varrone	Chevrolet Corvette C8.R	LMGTE AM	3'52.228	27.015
41	25	Ahmad Al Harthy  Michael Dinan  Charlie Eastwood	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'52.431	27.218
42	57	Scott Huffaker  Takeshi Kimura  Daniel Serra	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'52.459	27.246
43	55	Gustav Birch  Jens Reno Møller  Marco Sørensen	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'52.484	27.271
44	83	Luis Perez Companc  Alessio Rovera  Lilou Wadoux	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'52.658	27.445
45	21	Simon Mann  Ulysse De Pauw  Julien Piguet	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'52.968	27.755
46	74	Kei Cozzolino  Yorikatsu Tsujiko  Naoki Yokomizo	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'53.263	28.050
47	60	Matteo Cressoni  Alessio Picariello  Claudio Schiavoni	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'53.374	28.161
48	98	Ian James  Daniel Mancinelli  Alex Riberas	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'53.406	28.193
49	77	Julien Andlauer  Christian Ried  Mikkel Pedersen	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'53.481	28.268
50	86	Ben Barker  Riccardo Pera  Michael Wainwright	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'53.531	28.318
51	85	Sarah Bovy  Rahel Frey  Michelle Gatting	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'53.603	28.390
52	72	Valentin Hasse-Clot  Arnold Robin  Maxime Robin	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	3'53.703	28.490
53	56	Matteo Cairoli  PJ Hyett  Gunnar Jeannette	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'53.947	28.734
54	66	Neubauer Thomas  Giacomo Petrobelli  Louis Prette	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'54.093	28.880
55	911	Michael Fassbender  Richard Lietz  Martin Rump	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'54.129	28.916
56	16	Ryan Hardwick  Jan Heylen  Zacharie Robichon	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'54.137	28.924
57	100	Andrew Haryanto  Chandler Hull  Jeffrey Segal	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	3'54.143	28.930
58	88	Jonas Ried  Harry Tincknell  Don Yount	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	3'58.486	33.273
59	36	Julien Canal  Charles Milesi  Matthieu Vaxivière	Oreca 07	LMP2	3'59.171	33.958
60	13	René Rast  Ricky Taylor  Steven Thomas	Oreca 07	LMP2	no time
61	38	Antonio Felix da Costa  Will Stevens  Ye Yifei	Porsche 963	Hypercar	no time
62	777	Tomonobu Fujii  Satoshi Hoshino  Casper Stevenson	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	no time