24 Hours of Le Mans – Hyperpole: Ferrari sets pole record
Ferrari has signed an incredible pole position, beating the previous Hypercar track record by nearly one second. Sébastien Bourdais experienced mixed emotions with a provisional third place, before his car caught fire.
It was the Toyotas who kicked off the event. Car number 8 set an entry time of 3 minutes 26′ 398”. However, the Ferraris immediately unleashed their power in this short session. Alessandro Pier Guidi, behind the wheel of car number 51, responded with a mind-blowing time: 3 minutes 23′ 897”. The Hypercar track record has already been surpassed.
On the second lap, the second Ferrari fails by just eight thousandths of a second to take first place. Toyota is left trailing by over a second. Sébastien Bourdais slips his Cadillac between the two Japanese hypercars (3 minutes 25′ 521”).
The Cadillac on fire
Antonio Fuoco, in the second Ferrari, sets the fastest time in 3 minutes 22′ 982”, even though he was hindered twice at the Arnage corner. Sébastien Bourdais wants to show that he can compete for top positions and surpasses the Toyota cars with 6 minutes remaining in the session.
Cadillac number 3 could not finish the hyperpole. The Hypercar caught fire at the second chicane, on the straight of Hunaudières. The red flag was shown. Sebastian Bourdais’ best time was removed by the officials following this incident.
Brendon Hartley, in the Toyota number 8, achieved fifth place, while number 7 finished in third. Sébastien Bourdais is relegated to eighth position. The best Porsche, number 75, achieved fourth place.
In LMP2, Idec Sport was the fastest, thanks to Paul-Loup Chatin’s best lap time of 3 minutes 32′ 923”. Ben Keating, in his Corvette, dominated the GTE-AM category with a 1.6-second lead over his closest competitor, the Aston Martin 25 from ORT by TF.
