Porsche Penske Motorsport’s #5 963 will start tomorrow’s FIA WEC 2024 season opener in Qatar from pole position, after Matt Campbell set a rapid 1:39.347 in the new 2024 Hyperpole qualifying format’s debut.
Campbell’s tour came at the end of the 10-minute Hypercar shootout, ending a battle for pole with the #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 HYBRID of Nyck De Vries that went down to the wire.
De Vries came close, with a 1:39.511 on his penultimate tour of the circuit, before Campbell delivered Porsche’s first Hypercar class pole and the first pole for an LMDh chassis in the WEC with his final lap.
While the TGR team will likely be disappointed that it missed out on pole by such a slim margin, this was a promising flash of pace from the Japanese outfit which believed it would struggle to be in the mix prior to the session.
“It’s fantastic to get our first pole with the 963. We’ve made some really good tuning before Qualifying and it’s paid off. I struggled in my qualifying simulation yesterday but we turned it around,” Campbell said.
Off the front row, the #12 HERTZ Team JOTA Porsche will start third after Callum Illot’s 1:39.622, which ensured he was one of the five drivers to set a time under 1:40.
The fastest of the two Ferrari AF Corse 499Ps – the #50 – ended up fourth, while the sister Penske 963 claimed fifth spot on the grid.
Further back the Cadillac which topped Free Practice 3 slotted in seventh, and the two Peugeot 9X8s qualified well for the final race of the current iteration of the car, finishing up sixth and 10th.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, none of the brand-new LMDh chassis to the WEC, nor the Isotta Fraschini Tipo6-C, made the Hyperpole shootout. The biggest surprise was that the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID of Brendon Hartley didn’t either, it will start 11th after a 1:40.586 was all the Kiwi could muster.
The first session for Hypercar saw the top 17 set times within two seconds of the #5 Porsche which topped the times. The Lamborghini Iron Lynx SC63 ended up 2.5 seconds off in 18th ahead of the Isotta which was 19th with a 1:43.189.
Before Hypercar Hyperpole, Tom Van Rompuy stole the show in the GT ranks, setting an astonishing 1:54.372 time in the #81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R to take the first-ever pole in LMGT3 class history by eight-tenths.
“I’m very happy to be on pole for my first WEC race, I couldn’t have dreamed of this!” A delighted Van Rompuy said after the session.
It was a hugely impressive showing in Hyperpole from the Belgian driver in what is a very new car, scoring its first pole position globally. His fast time came with two minutes remaining and although the other contenders in the session had time to respond, there were no significant improvements in the final seconds.
Lithuanian team Pure Rxcing’s Manthey Porsche 911 LMGT3 R 992 will start alongside the brand new Corvette after Alex Malykhin set a 1:55.179 in the team’s first WEC Qualifying appearance.
A Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 ended up taking third after a hugely impressive run from Thomas Flohr, his time was three-thousandths of a second off Malykhin in the #54, which has looked fast all week.
The top five was completed by the two brand new Aston Martin Vantage LMGT3s, with the D’Station example set to start fourth ahead of the car fielded by US team Heart of Racing.
Prior to the shootout, Heart of Racing’s Aston topped Qualifying, with a 1:55.251 from Ian James in the dying moments of the first-ever 12-minute Qualifying session to decide which teams made the cut for LMGT3 Hyperpole.
Of the teams that failed to make it to phase two, TF Sport’s #82 Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R came closest and ended up missing out by two-tenths. Hiroshi Koizumi will start 11th tomorrow.
Both AKKODIS ASP Lexus RC F GT3s and Proton Ford Mustangs (the #77 didn’t make it out) also failed to break into the top 10.
Another notable omission was WRT’s #31 M4 GT3. It will start 13th in class after Darren Leung’s efforts, while the sister #46 will line up ninth.
Today’s session was the debut of the WEC’s new two-stage Hyperpole format in an FIA WEC race outside of the Le Mans 24 Hours. It delivered a strong first impression, with the battle to make the pole shootouts in both classes adding real drama and tension to proceedings. It will almost certainly become a popular, exciting addition to race weekends this season.
Next on the timetable is the 1812KM race itself tomorrow, which is set to get underway at 11:00 am local time.
