Alex Lynn was the fastest man in the first leg of Qualifying for the 93rd Le Mans 24 Hours, topping the time sheets in the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R.
In a dramatic 30-minute session, only the top 15 cars out of 21 Hypercars would advance to Hyperpole on a scorching hot evening, as hot as the action proved to be.
Lynn displaced the #15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Dries Vanthoor from pole position with a 3:22.847, four-hundredths of a second better than the 3:22.887 posted by Vanthoor.
“That was lovely!” exclaimed Lynn. “The car was great. Honestly, no complaints. I didn’t make any set-up adjustments between the first and second run and just improved my performance. It’s a strong start, we’ll take that one.”
Behind them were Antonio Giovinazzi, third-fastest in the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P, and Kevin Estre, last year’s pole-sitter, in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963. Sebastien Bourdais in the #38 JOTA Cadillac, and 2024 winner Antonio Fuoco in the #50 AF Corse Ferrari, completed the top six.
The bottom six eliminated were the two Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyries, the two Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8s, the #99 Proton Competition Porsche, and the biggest surprise of them all, the #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid in its GT-One throwback livery.
Nyck de Vries was only 17th-quickest in the #7 Toyota, 2.2 seconds off the pole time and visibly upset as he got out of his car.
Meanwhile, the #009 Aston Martin in the hands of Marco Sorensen appeared to be on course for an upset run to Hyperpole 1 – only for the #4 Penske Porsche of Felipe Nasr to bump him below the cut line right at the checkered flag.
The #5 Penske Porsche (Julien Andlauer), #20 WRT BMW (Robin Frijns), #311 Whelen Cadillac (Jack Aitken), #8 Toyota GR010 (Brendon Hartley), #83 AF Corse Ferrari (Ye Yifei), and #101 WTR Cadillac (Filipe Albuquerque) all advanced to the first Hyperpole session tomorrow evening, along with Mick Schumacher and Paul-Loup Chatin in the two Alpine Hypercar Team A424s.
But the Alpine’s runs were not without drama – Chatin spun in the Porsche Curves, right in front of Schumacher, who posted a quicker lap despite passing through a double waved yellow flag zone. Schumacher improved again at the checkered flag to get further to safety.
LMP2 and LMGT3 provisional pole positions went to the #199 AO by TF ORECA 07-Gibson and the #46 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 EVO, respectively, in a twice-interrupted Qualifying session for the two sub-categories.
Just before half-time, the #60 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 of Andrew Gilbert reported a loss of fuel pressure heading out of the first corner and crawled to a stop – the second major misfortune for Iron Lynx today after the #63 Mercedes-AMG’s accident in Free Practice 1.
15 minutes and 15 seconds remained on the clock when the session resumed, but with three minutes and 51 seconds left, the red flag was shown again after the #150 Richard Mille AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 went off at Mulsanne Corner.
When the session was called off, the #199 AO by TF ORECA advanced to Hyperpole 1 tomorrow, joined by both United Autosports cars, both Algarve Pro Racing cars, TDS Racing’s #29 car, the #43 Inter Europol Competion car, the #28 IDEC Sport car, plus RLR MSport, AF Corse, and CLX Pure Rxcing.
Louis Deletraz, last year’s LMP2 polesitter, led the way with a best lap of 3:35.472 – two-tenths ahead of Ben Hanley in the #23 United Autosports car.
The most notable car to miss the cut in LMP2 was the #18 IDEC Sport car backed by Genesis Magma Racing. Three-time Le Mans winner Andre Lotterer’s best time was only good for 14th fastest.
“We need to look at where we lose time compared to the others,” Lotterer said after his Qualifying run. It seems like straight line speed is an issue. Then I was on a good lap, but I got impeded so lost three-to-four tenths there, I think on my best attempt unfortunately.
“But it’s a long race, and I think the race car is quite good, but in qualifying it was difficult to extract the most out of it. We can tweak things [with the set-up] – that’s quite logical, but straight line speed – that might be something we need to to understand.“
Meanwhile, as Ahmad Al Harthy took provisional pole in the #46 WRT BMW shared with Valentino Rossi, posting a 3:56.875, the #31 WRT BMW in the hands of defending LMGT3 race winner Yasser Shahin didn’t make the cut for Hyperpole 1.
Only two full-time WEC teams got their two cars into Hyperpole 1 in fact: Vista AF Corse’s two Ferraris, and United Autosports’ two McLaren LMGT3 EVOs.
They’ll be joined in tomorrow’s session by the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin, the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche, the #78 Akkodis ASP Racing Lexus, #81 TF Sport Corvette, #88 Proton Competition Ford, and the #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG, salvaging some dignity for the troubled team.
GT World Challenge invitee Ziggo Sport Tempesta also made it into Hyperpole 1 with their #193 Ferrari.
Those notable LMGT3 Bronzes that also missed the cut included Ben Keating in the LMGT3 World Championship-leading #33 TF Sport Corvette (17th), and Celia Martin in the #85 Iron Dames Porsche (19th). Keating sat above the top-12 cut line during the first red flag but tumbled down the order.
Hyperpole Qualifying begins tomorrow at 8:00 PM CET, meanwhile, Wednesday’s on-track action continues with Free Practice 2 tonight from 10:00 PM to midnight CET.
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