Kevin Estre didn’t know if he’d have enough fuel to complete the lap that eventually gave him pole position for the 92nd annual 24 Hours of Le Mans, but the fast Frenchman was able to avoid that disaster – and other pitfalls – on the way to qualifying first in Hyperpole on Thursday evening.
“It was crazy,” Estre recalls of his pole-winning lap set after the chequered flag. “At first we didn’t know if we had enough fuel. So we went out, we were last in the queue. I tried to overtake people and tried to make the first lap count. There was a bit of traffic and it was not a perfect lap because the tyres were still coming.
“And then I started the second lap. I thought that I wouldn’t have enough fuel, but I did the first sector, second sector, the engineers said ‘Keep pushing, we don’t know if we have enough fuel, but we’ll try.’
He also encountered a dragon along the way – namely ‘Spike’ – the #14 AO by TF ORECA LMP2 of Louis Deletraz, during his flying lap. Estre was able to get a tow off the LMP2 car, but he also had to work harder than he’d have liked to get around Deletraz to finish the lap.
“I had a very nice slipstream from an LMP2 on the way to Indy, but I had to overtake him in Indy 1 – he didn’t really want to, so he blocked me a little bit, I came in from the inside. So it was really not easy, but I’m happy that I managed that!
“Then the Porsche Corners were amazing. I really think I did a perfect combination of corners there with the car I had. Crossing the line, I didn’t know where I was, but I knew the lap was not too bad.
“I had no idea about the lap time. I knew about the first lap time on the first set, which was quite slow, I think. Because we all had this red flag, we all started with higher fuel because you can’t refuel in Hyperpole. So I knew this lap time was going to be beaten.
“I knew what I was able to do in Quali, which was the same condition yesterday, but I didn’t know how much I could extract more. The wind is very different today. So I just gave my all and concentrated on what I have underneath me. I can’t influence the others.”
Estre was only fifth-fastest when the session was red-flagged with less than seven minutes to go. He was 1.5 seconds back of Sebastien Bourdais’ provisional pole time – but he had enough fuel in the car to make another run if the session resumed. The green flag waved again at 9:06 PM, and Estre took his chance to try and move further up the order.
“I was just afraid of us starting at the back of the pack because we were I think the last car on the red flag, having to overtake all these cars, but some cars stayed in the pits.
“I had a good out lap, and then I was in between LMP2s – so I knew, ‘Okay, I’m gonna push and at some point, I’m going to overtake the LMP2, and hopefully it’s in the right spot.’
“In the first lap, I had to overtake in the last sector, which was not ideal. Second lap, overtaking in Indy. But it’s a bit of a give-and-take – I lost a bit of time in Indy 1, but I gained a bit in the slipstream.”
The slipstream also helped Estre gain the time back that he and others were losing from a strong headwind down Les Hundaudieres, while the track conditions also improved to Estre’s liking since the start of the week.
“The mindset during the red flag was good. It was just question marks on how many laps can we do, and how much traffic are we going to have. And what’s our strategy on these out laps – saving some fuel to make sure we could do two laps, or making sure we have tyres for two laps? And in the end we managed to do both. So this was quite incredible.”
Estre, Laurens Vanthoor, and three-time Le Mans overall winner Andre Lotterer will start on the pole in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, and will try to score the Stuttgart marque a record-extending 20th Le Mans win and first for the new Porsche 963.
For Sebastien Bourdais, he has no regrets after qualifying third for his 17th 24 Hours of Le Mans – 25 years after his debut in his home race.
He set a 3:24.816 halfway through the 30-minute Hyperpole session, but when the session was red-flagged, Bourdais didn’t have enough fuel in the car to go back out again.
“It was a really solid lap,” he said. “You always leave something on the table at a track like this.
“But at the end of the day, I’m really happy where we ended up. The car didn’t feel great for most of the test, but when we hit the track for qualifying, the car was amazing. This time I didn’t get any traffic.
“The first prep lap I just pushed through because I knew it was a throw-away lap. That’s why when they told me I was only going to get one lap, I thought there was no way and that I couldn’t get the tyres up to temp. We probably were going to be too low on fuel to do three and two.
“It is what it is. At the end of the day, I was super happy that we could jam that thing in. It’s amazing and awesome for Cadillac. I’m really happy. The thing has four wheels on it and we didn’t put a foot wrong. We can go racing now.”
Had he held onto pole position, Bourdais would have been the oldest pole winner in the history of the race, with the 45-year-old two years older than the legendary Bob Wollek when he qualified fastest for the 1987 edition, at 43.
Instead, he finished behind Estre and the sister #2 Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Lynn.
It wasn’t pole but it was still a significant result for the GM brand. Second and third-place qualifying efforts are Cadillac’s best ever at Le Mans, a fantastic achievement after a memorable podium finish in last year’s race.
“I’m proud of the entire team and Cadillac for the work they’ve done to prepare for qualifying and the Hyperpole,” Lynn concluded.
“It was a strong effort and we proved that we have fast cars. We’re starting from a good spot, so we’ll continue to fine-tune and get ready for the race.”
Images © Jürgen Tap/ Porsche, Andrew ‘Skippy’ Hall / Dailysportscar.com, Richard Prince / Cadillac
