Penske Porsche shattered Cadillac’s dreams of a shock pole for the Le Mans 24 Hours as the number six car snatched pole in the final moments.
The number three Cadillac had sat on provisional pole position in the final minutes thanks to Sebastien Bourdais, until its sister number two car beat it at the chequered flag only to be upset by a stunning final lap by Kevin Estre.
A total of 23 cars participated in the hyperpole session – eight from each of the three classes of Hypercar, LMP2 and LMGT3, but with the number 12 Jota Porsche missing due to ongoing rebuilding work to its new chassis following its huge Wednesday practice crash. The number 12 car was only due to be in the session after the number seven Toyota had all of its times deleted from qualifying after Kamui Kobayashi spun.
A heavy accident in the Road to Le Mans support series race on the run to the Indianapolis corner led to extensive barrier repairs which delayed the start of the session by 35 minutes. Eventually the session began with a light threat of rain building.
After the initial runs, the two factory Ferraris of number 50 and number 51 were the early pace setters with Antonio Fuoco putting the number 50 on provisional pole with a 3’25.598. But that was then beaten by Bourdais who took the top spot by three tenths of a second in the number three Cadillac.
Bourdais improved on his own provisional pole lap by four tenths a second while the Ferraris returned to the pits. BMW pitted their number 15 car from the softs onto fresh mediums, but Dries Vanthoor ran off the track at Indianapolis, sliding into the tyre barriers and bringing out the red flags.
With seven-and-a-half minutes remaining in the session, there was plenty of time for the field to head back out for at least one final push lap. However, with teams only allowed to use two tyre sets for each car and most teams having been running on a second set of tyres when the red flag came out, Cadillac chose not to send the number three car back out for a final run.
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Ferrari sent both their cars out together, but Fuoco made an error at the first chicane, ending his chances for pole. Rather than offer a slipstream to his team mate number 51 car, Fuoco pulled over before Terte Rouge to allow Alessandro Pier Guidi through. Pier Guidi improved to go second but was unable to beat the best time of the number two Cadillac.
With Ferrari sure not to repeat their pole position feat…
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