Ferrari AF Corse flexed its muscles in qualifying tonight for the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe. Its pair of 499Ps set blistering times in the red-flag interrupted hour to secure spots in Hyperpole in fine style, ending up first and second on the timing screens.
The No. 50 499P ran fastest, after Antonio Fuoco set a 3m25.213s with 16 minutes left, seconds after Alessandro Pier Guidi in the No. 51 briefly topped the times with a 3m25.412s. Pier Guidi appeared to have even more pace up his sleeve, as the Italian was held up on his lap and yet still came within two-tenths of the sister car. Nevertheless, Fuoco’s time was still mightily impressive so early in the week, in a car new to the circuit.
“It was a really intense qualifying. The guys did an amazing job and stayed calm and focused,” related Fuoco. “It’s really good for the guys. I hope we can continue with this trend. We know tomorrow will be tough.”
The two Ferraris, with times that were within a second of last year’s pole time from Toyota, were half a second up from the rest of the Hypercar pack. The two Toyotas ended up third and fourth, with the No. 7 ahead of the No. 8.
The remaining cars that sealed a place in the Hyperpole session in the Hypercar class were the No. 5 and No. 75 Penske Porsches and the two Cadillac Racing V-Series.Rs.
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With only eight spots in the shootout available for each class, plenty of teams missed out and already have their grid spaces decided.
In Hypercar, the No. 6 Penske Porsche missed out by almost 0.9s. The eighth and final spot was filled by the No. 2 Cadillac, after a 3m26.020s from Earl Bamber, and all Kevin Estre could muster in his Porsche was a 3m26.900s.
Neither Peugeot made the cut either, nor did the Action Express Cadillac, the Glickenhaus and Vanwall entries or the Hertz Team JOTA. For JOTA, it was a hugely disappointing session. Hybrid system issues limited the team to just three out laps and no flyers.
“We keep getting hybrid failure alarms, I don’t need to say more,” Antonio Felix da Costa said. “We can restart and move again, but the same thing keeps happening, so the team are looking at it. Everything is very new to us.”
It was a far better performance from JOTA in LMP2, however, where the team’s No. 28 ORECA set a 3m34.751s with Pietro Fittipaldi at the wheel and claimed both the top spot and a place in Hyperpole.
It was incredibly tight in LMP2, the top 14 within a second. With the class being so deep, many big teams missed out.
Making the cut behind the JOTA ORECA was the No. 41 WRT example, both PREMA cars, the Vector Sport 07 Gibson, COOL Racing’s car (despite an off at Indianapolis for Malthe Jakobsen that caused a red flag) and Racing Team Turkey’s car.
This meant that neither United Autosports ORECA ended up in the top eight, nor did WRT’s No. 31 car, the No, 34 Inter Europol crew or the No. 36 Alpine which ended up in the gravel early on after a collision with the No. 22 United ORECA at the Ford Chicane.
In GTE Am, Nicky Catsburg almost stole the show for Corvette Racing. The Dutchman put the car at the top of the rankings right at the end of the session on his first flying lap in the hour, extracting real pace from the C8.R which was delayed out on track after its Free Practice 1 incident.
In the end, his 3m52.228s wasn’t good enough to set the pace in the category, but it was good enough for third, and more than enough to ensure the team will take part in tomorrow’s Hyperpole session. Alessio Rovera bettered Catsburg’s time in the No. 83 Richard Mille AF Corse ORECA, which managed a 3m51.877s and Davide Rigon, who set a 3m51.914s in the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari.
Elsewhere in the class, the No. 25 ORT by TF Aston Martin, No. 57 Kessel Ferrari, No. 55 GMB Aston Martin, No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari and No. 74 Kessel Racing Ferrari all made it into Hyperpole.
The Hendrick Motorsports Camaro ZL1 once again ran significantly faster than all the GTE cars in the field, with a best time of 3m47.976s.
Like Free Practice 1, Qualifying was heavily interrupted by various incidents that caused yellow flags and slow zones as drivers pushed their cars to the limits on the evolving track to set fast times. The first was for the aforementioned collision between the No. 36 Alpine and No. 22 United ORECA. The second for Jakobsen’s off at Indianapolis.
Track action continues tonight with Free Practice 2 at 10pm local time.