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…\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After Jack Aitken’s barnstorming lap was deleted during the pole-winners ceremony, BMW will start the 24 Hours of Le Mans on pole for the first time in their history, thanks to Dries Vanthoor’s domineering efforts in the #15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the #15 BMW crew celebrating what they thought was the marque’s first ever overall pole position at Le Mans, Jack Aitken continued to hustle his #38, eventually snatching pole on track away by the slimmest of margins, his 3.22.559 was enough to oust the BMW and take pole for Cadillac. But with that lap deleted, the order was changed and Vanthoor’s original lap, a 3.22.564 will see him start on the front row in the #15. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Aitken’s #38 will now take tenth on the grid for the 24 Hour epic on Saturday, while Cadillac will remain on the front row of the grid through the #12 JOTA entry. BMW’s #20 will start meanwhile on the second row, from fourth, alongside the third-placed #35 Alpine thanks to Antonio Felix Da Costa’s efforts on Saturday at 4pm. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fifth will now be the #101 Cadillac, starting alongside Genesis’s #19, who take sixth place on the grid at their first Le Mans with the #009 Aston Martin and the #51 Ferrari seventh and eighth, before the sister Genesis #17 starts ninth. Rounding out the top ten is Aitken’s #38 Cadillac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hyperpole 1<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Alpine took provisional pole for the second time in as many days, with Antonio Felix Da Costa topping the timing sheets with a 3.23.018, less than a tenth of a second ahead of Le Mans native Sebastian Bourdais’s #38 JOTA Cadillac, with Genesis taking third thanks to the efforts of Andre Lotterer in the #17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the first set of laps it was Earl Bamber’s #38 Cadillac with the fastest time of 3.23.733 which wouldn’t be bested for the rest of the first set of laps as everyone boxed for softs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The big surprise was Mathieu Jaminet in the #19 Genesis who on his first push lap was just 0.232sec off the two-time Le Mans winner’s time, with the sister #101 Cadillac switching to mediums and going against the majority decision, their best time 0.4sec down on Bamber after the first push laps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n By this point Ferrari had both their remaining cars in the drop zone, but Antonio Fuoco lifted his #50 Ferrari out of the drop zone on his second push lap, with Sheldon Van Der Linde sitting just 0.02sec in the elimination zone ahead of Antonio Giovinazzi’s #51. Both Aston Martins struggled throughout, at times nearly 2 seconds adrift of the top of the timing sheets. <\/p>\n\n\n\n With 6 minutes left many were still heating up their second set of tyres or failing to improve, meaning Toyota, Genesis and Alpine looked to be the only teams to send both their cars into the second part of the session. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sheldon Van Der Linde’s #20 was the first to heat up his new set, setting a personal best in sector one and an absolute best in the second sector on his next push lap and broke the beams to go 0.4sec faster momentarily. Seconds later the lead changed hands again, as first Bamber and then Jaminet snatched provisional P1 from the BMW team. Meanwhile both Aston Martins secured their place in the top ten shootout leaving Alpine at risk with both their cars.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Toyota now had both cars in the drop zone meanwhile and with one more chance to advance Kamui Kobayashi slowed on the Mulsanne, meaning his #7 entry would miss Hyperpole while Ryo Hirakawa also failed to improve. Both incredibly failed to progress, down in fourteenth and fifteenth. #7 ahead of #8, alongside the #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco in twelfth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The other Rossa Corsa 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi snuck in with his #51 Ferrari into seventh. <\/p>\n\n\n\n At the flag Bamber improved yet again, but it was Charles Milesi who set the quickest lap of all in Hyperpole 1 in the #35. All three Cadillacs progressed with the #38 second, #101 in fourth and the #12 in seventh, BMW’s cars were fifth and sixth, #15 ahead of #20 with both Genesis cars making it through comfortably. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Sneaking in for the second year in a row – this time on pure pace – was the #009 Aston Martin of Marco Sorensen, who had the bittersweet task of demoting the sister #007 into eleventh where it would start, with the #36 Alpine that set provisional pole yesterday would be starting immediately behind on the grid in thirteenth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n HYPERPOLE 2.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Once the session began both Genesises as well as the #12 Cadillac pitted to take fresh tyres after their inital outlap, as BMW’s cars were the first to set flying times. Of those initial times, it was the #15 of Dries Vanthoor who set the fastest lap thus far across all sessions, a 3.22.745. The sister car, #20, was 1.1sec back and 1.2sec ahead of Antonio Felix Da Costa’s #35 Alpine in third. Ferrari’s sole Hyperpole competitor was fourth with six minutes left, James Calado’s #51 with a 2.4sec deficit to Vanthoor’s rapid time in fifth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On his next lap Vanthoor was fastest again in the first sector, but failed to improve while Da Costa improved to just 1.1sec back, splitting the works BMWs with Felipe Albuquerque improving to fourth and the #009 Aston moving to fifth. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Last year’s pole-sitter Will Stevens leapfrogged his way up to second, slashing the gap to Vanthoor by 0.6sec as Paul-Loup Chatin was fifth on his first push lap. Vanthoor then improved by 0.2sec to a 3.22.564 with Will Stevens the only man who could take the fight to the Belgian but he could only close up by a couple hundredths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, an incredibly tense Hyperpole session proved an incredulously entertaining watch right to the dying seconds. FP4 is up next, at 11pm local time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n