24 Hours of Le Mans: Hyperpole -part 2

LMPLMGTELM GTEWEC

Jun 9

Written By Car Racing Reporter

The Hyperpole of the 24 Hours of Le Mans for LMP2 was fierce was the top 3 within 0.317 seconds.

In LMGTE AM, Ben Keating dominated the class by relegating the second to more than a second and a half.

LMP2 class

Table 1: Hyperpole LMP2 classification

Paul-Loup Chatin with #48 IDEC Sport ORECA, Pietro Fittipaldi with JOTA #28 and Louis Deletraz with the WRT ORECA #41 fought like ragpickers to finish in that order.

📷 © Luc Warnotte during Hyperpole at Le Mans. Paul-Loup Chatin with #48 IDEC Sport ORECA.

Paul Lafargue, Paul-Loup Chatin and Laurents Hörr with #48 IDEC Sport Oreca will start from pole of LMP2 class tomorrow at 4pm.

📷 © Luc Warnotte during Hyperpole at Le Mans. Pietro Fittipaldi with #28 JOTA Oreca.

David Heinemeier Hanson, Oliver Rasmussen and Pietro Fittipaldi with #28 JOTA Oreca will also start from front row the 24 Hours of Le Mans as Fittipaldi qualified second only for 0.112 sec.

📷 © Luc Warnotte during Hyperpole at Le Mans. Louis Deletraz in #41 Team WRT.

#41 Team WRT squad Louis Deletraz, Rui Andrade and Robert Kubica will start in second row of the LMP2 class as Deletraz qualified second.

Reshad de genus with the #47 COOL Racing Oreca was the fourth and last one within 1 second of the Benchmark set by Paul Lafargue.

LMGTE AM class

Table 2: Hyperpole LMGTE AM classification

Keating – teaming in the Corvette with Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone – posted a best lap of 3:52.376 (131.171 mph) to take Corvette Racing’s second straight pole position at Le Mans. The GTE Am championship-leading trio increased their points advantage by one with the P1 finish.

The stellar work by the Corvette Racing team continued after Wednesday’s heroics that saw Catsburg get the C8.R into Hyperpole following a fast repair job by the crew after a crash at the end of the first practice. The storybook result kept going even on Keating’s first lap Thursday when he picked up a tow from another GTE car all the way down the Mulsanne Straight. He cleared his competitor going into Mulsanne Corner to take provisional pole after the opening flyer.

📷 © Luc Warnotte during Hyperpole at Le Mans. Ben Keating ending his flying lap with #33 Corvette C8.R .

BEN KEATING, NO. 33 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – GTE AM POLE-WINNER: "I wanted to find a gap on my out-lap. I thought the GT cars were driving really slow for having hot tires. I was thinking that we have hot tires, it's time to push. They were all going slow and I was push, push, push. So I had a big gap and I didn't think I would ever catch the Ferrari ahead of me because he was so far up there. But the LMP2 cars, when they got to the chicane, just stopped to get a window. So I was right on the Ferrari and he gave me a perfect tow down every straight away. I passed him into Mulsanne, and he didn't slow me down any. It was incredible and I thought that was as good as it gets, almost to the point that I was wondering why we were out there!

"I did a cool-down lap and the team told me that the 25 was 0.3 seconds behind. I thought then that I'd better get it in gear! I pushed really hard for another lap and had one in the bank because of no track limits. So I could push a little more, and the Corvette was set up so well that I didn't have to worry about track limits. The car went exactly where I wanted it to go. I could push the car harder in every corner. I got better in Porsche Curves and came over the line at 3:53.0. I didn't think there was any way anyone was going to touch me. But we came in for the red flag, and I didn't understand the point of putting new tires on it because I didn't think I could improve. But it makes sense now.

"The sun had gone down and the tires really came into the window. The air was a little cooler, and we were at bare minimum of fuel. So I got one out-lap and then one flyer. I got the peak of the tire, the peak of low fuel, the peak of the temperature, and I put a lap together. It was pretty magical, especially considering how close we were to not even making qualifying yesterday. The team did an amazing job to get the car out where Nicky could do what we needed to get us into Hyperpole. So I'm incredibly excited and happy for the entire team. This is the best way I can think of to go into the race!"

📷 © Luc Warnotte during Qualification at Le Mans. #25 ORT by TF Aston Martin Vantage AMR.

Al Harty with his Aston martin Vantage AMR #25 was 1.529 seconds short of the Benchmark set by Keating but will start from first row of LMGTE AM class aside the Corvette in pole.

📷 © Luc Warnotte during Free session 1 at Le Mans. #54 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo.

Thomas Flohr with #54 AF Corse Ferrari did set the third best performance of the class ahead of AF Corse #21 driven by Julien Piguet fourth, #83 Richard Mille AF Corse with Luis Perez Companc fifth and #57 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Kessel Racing, driven by Takeshi Kimura, sixth.

24 Hours of Le Mans: Hyperpole -part 2

LMP2 class

LMGTE AM class

24 Hours of Le Mans: Hyperpole - part 1

24 Hours of Le Mans: Hypercars Qualifying