The Grand Prix of Endurance is back, the City of Le Mans preparing to become motorsport’s ultimate battleground for the 94th time. Having defeated the defacto Kings of Le Mans and banished Porsche to the USA, Ferrari seek a fourth consecutive crown for the first time since 1964. Yet with the field having closed the performance gap and arriving hungrier than ever, it will be no easy task for the Scuderia – but it never has. Who will emerge from the Porsche curves at 4.00pm on Sunday? It’s time for the oldest endurance test of them all to begin… 

In their last Le Mans in the top class, Alpine went fastest in a frantic first qualifying session with Ferdinand Habsburg at the wheel of the #36 as the defending race winner will begin Saturday’s iconic race in a shockingly low 17th, both Peugeots sandwiching the #83 Ferrari on the grid.

Cadillac had been strong all session long and while it would be Alpine who took top honours they’d take second, third and fifth with the #12 of Louis Deletraz just 0.013 off Habsburg’s time, a 3.23.135. Third was the #101 of Jordan Taylor for Wayne Taylor Racing while a late charge from Rene Rast saw his #15 BMW secure fourh ahead of the #38 Cadillac.

The second BMW of Kevin Magnussen was sixth after a strong showing from the Belgian WRT team, while Aston Martin got both their cars in the top 10. Alex Riberas’s #007 was seventh with the sister #009 machine of Tom Gamble ending the session in ninth having at one point headed the timing sheets 1-2.

Toyota struggled, with Sebastian Buemi’s efforts only good enough to put the #8 eighth with the second Alpine, Fred Makoweicki’s #35 completing the top ten. The second Toyota, that of #7 was 12th fastest in the hands of Mike Conway as Toyota chose to save their standard qualifying drivers for tomorrow’s session.

Ferrari and Genesis experienced opposing fortunes, as while both of the Korean manufacturer’s cars are through to tomorrow’s Hyperpole sessions with #19 in eleventh and #17 thirteenth they can be proud of their efforts. Meanwhile Ferrari only had the two works cars into Hyperpole, with Nicklas Nielsen’s #50 fourteenth and the #51 of Alessandro Pier Guidi fifteenth.

image credit: T GOUREAU, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons