Arthur Rogeon put his #12 Brutal Fish by Campos Ligier JS P325 on pole for tomorrow’s Le Mans Cup Road To Le Mans race, setting the fastest lap with seven minutes remaining in the session as the track developed.
The performance marked a change in fortunes for the #12 car, which has had a rough start to the season, with two consecutive retirements coming into this event.
Following two stop-and-start practice sessions, the #12 looked rapid this weekend with its driver pairing of Arthur Rogeon and August Raber, finishing Practice 1 sixth-fastest and improving later in the day to go fastest overall with a 3:51.101.
The pole position time was 3:48.898, significantly quicker than the fastest practice times, with the track temperature rising from 20 to 27 degrees over the hour-long session.
Lining up second will be the #5 23Events Racing car, with Matteo Franco Segre setting their fastest time, 0.8 seconds back of the flying #12. They outqualified their sister car, the reigning Paul Ricard victors of the #50. The championship-leading #85 qualified third, the fastest of the Duqueiene marque, but over a second off of pole position.
The Le Mans Cup field had to slot in laps at key moments between cautions and slow zones throughout the session. Right away, the #22 Trajectus car was beached in Indianapolis, causing a Red Flag for the following 10 minutes before getting back to green with 45 minutes remaining.
Several cars were warned for track limits violations at the Dunlop chicane in particular throughout the session, including the #99 More Motorsport LMP3 and the #11 Code Racing Development Aston Martin.
The #9 ANS Motorsport car stopped just to the right of the pit exit, causing a slow zone after a decent section of green flag running 35 minutes into the session. The #9 was able to reverse back into the pits, but ultimately was unable to get back on the pace in the remaining minutes, qualifying 22nd in class.
The #68 M Racing damaged the front of its car at the Ford chicane, needing to be retrieved by marshals, causing yet another slow zone. The session would go green once again with 18 minutes remaining. Soon after, the track hit its peak and new fastest laps were logged in all three classes.
One last caution would close out the session, with the #42 Steller Motorsport LMP3 Pro/Am car getting stuck in Turn 11.
At the top of LMP3 Pro-Am was the #3 DKR Engineering machine with a respectable time of 3:50.901, slotting in sixth overall. Second in class and eleventh overall was the #98 Motorsport98, who ran in the top five for most of the session and won last time out at Paul Ricard.
In GT3, it was the #77 SMC Motorsport McLaren setting the bar, ahead of the #17 and #21 Kessel Racing Ferraris in second and third, respectively.
The three-hour Road to Le Mans race will begin tomorrow at 10 am local time.
