Romain Dumas in the #708 Glickenhaus Racing 007 LMH will start from pole on Sunday. The Frenchman was fastest (1:35.416) in the session, some nine-tenths ahead of the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid driven by Brendon Hartley.
Nicolas Lapierre was third in the #36 Alpine Elf team A480 Gibson (1:36.489) while Kamui Kobayashi was fourth in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid (1:36.919)
It is the second pole of the season for Glickenhaus Racing. “Our spiritual home is Italy” said Jim Glickenhaus. “It is mind boggling for a little team like ours to beat giants like Toyota or Alpine”.
The fastest Peugeot Total Energies 9X8 was the #94 driven by Gustavo Menezes (1:37.253), it ended in fifth position while the sister car, the #93 encountered mechanical problems (suspected clutch issue). It was not able to set a time and triggered a red flag towards the end of the session after stopping between Lesmo 1 and Lesmo 2.
In LMP2, Filipe Albuquerque was fastest in the United Autosport Oreca 07 Gibson (1:38.403), some three tenths ahead of a fine effort from Mathias Beche in the ARC Bratislava Oreca 07 Gibson (1:38.731) and nearly four-tenths faster than Ferdinand Habsburg in the Realteam By WRT Oreca 07 Gibson (1:38.780). “The car is fantastic here” said Albuquerque. “I love this track. The car is pretty cool. I just want points for the championship. The hardest part starts tomorrow”
Further down in the ranks:
– the Championship leading car, the #38 JOTA Oreca 07 Gibson driven by Will Stevens ended in eleventh position (1:39.723).
– the #23 United Autosport Oreca 07 Gibson did not set a lap time after losing laps to track limits
Meanwhile, in LMGTE Pro, Alessandro Pier Guidi managed to top the timing sheets in the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo (1:45.270). “It’s amazing to do this in front of our fans” said teammate James Calado. “It’s super hot. We will need to manage the car’s temperatures tomorrow”. It is Ferrari’s first pole position this season.
Nick Tandy landed in second position in the #64 Corvette Racing C8-R (1:45.324) with a late session effort edging the #52 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo into third spot by just 4 thousandths of a second (1:45.328)
Finally, in the LMGTE Am category, it was a neck-to-neck battle between the #85 Iron Dames Ferrari 488 GTE Evo driven by Sarah Bovy and Ben Keating in the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage. Keating snatched the provisional pole on his second flying lap (1:47.956). He kept the lead of the category until the final moments of the session when Bovy produced a (1:47.431) lap time.
Keating eventually managed to improve his fastest lap time to 1:47.659 but remained in second position behind the Belgian. It is the first time a female driver has claimed pole in any class in a WEC race.
