Porsche locked out the provisional front row for the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours, with Neel Jani topping first qualifying on Wednesday night.
Jani set his 3m19.733s lap early in the session, when Porsche and Toyota sent their cars out at the head of the field to kick qualifying off as the sun was going down.
The 2015 polesitter could have gone significantly faster than that time, but he was held up by traffic on the fast run from the Porsche Curves to the Ford Chicane at the end of the lap.
Timo Berhnard put the #1 Porsche second during the early sequence of laps, and he closed the gap to 0.4s with another run around 50 minutes into the session.
Toyota occupied the provisional second row with its TS050s, with the #6 car heading the #5 courtesy of a lap from Stephane Sarrazin early on.
Sarrazin – who crashed the car at the end of free practice – posted a time one second down on Jani’s best, while Anthony Davidson was another 1.1s back in the second Toyota following the early runs for both cars.
Toyota did encounter a minor drama during the session when Sebastien Buemi pulled over to the side of the Mulsanne Straight and stopped the #5 machine, but after performing a system reset and losing around one minute he rejoined the action without any further drama.
Audi’s session did not run as smoothly as its rivals, which left its fastest car nearly three seconds off the pace in fifth.
That honour went to the #8 car in the hands of Lucas di Grassi, who snatched fifth from the #7 machine in the closing seconds of the session.
While Audi decided not to send the #7 entry out with its rivals at the start of qualifying, the #8 car was not able to join the action until towards the end of the first hour due to repairs being carried out after it suffered a front drivetrain problem in free practice.
By the time the car joined the track Audi’s focus was on getting Oliver Jarvis, Lucas di Grassi and Loic Duval to complete their mandatory laps at night to qualify for the race.
That, combined with the nature of a session disrupted by several incidents caused by cars in other classes, meant the #8 car didn’t get a chance to complete a particularly clear run until the end, with di Grassi’s lap moving it ahead of the time posted by Andre Lotterer shortly before the halfway mark in the #7 car.
Di Grassi’s run also made sure both Audis were well clear of the #13 Rebellion, which led the privateer LMP1 ranks courtesy of Dominik Kraihamer.
The ByKolles CLM did not take part in the session after catching fire in free practice, but it is expected to return to the action on Thursday.
RAST TAKES CONTROL IN LMP2
By Edd Straw
Audi-contracted Rene Rast took LMP2 pole position for the Jota Sport-run G-Drive ORECA squad.
The German went fastest early in the session, with only Nelson Panciatici able to get close to him in the #35 Baxi DC Racing Alpine ORECA.
But unsatisfied with a pole margin of just 0.007s, Rast returned to the track late on to lower his mark to a 3m36.605s with 16 minutes remaining to pull out an advantage of close to six tenths over Panciatici.
Although Panciatici held on to second, stewards are investigating the possibility he improved under a yellow flag.
Nicolas Lapierre, in the #36 Signatech ORECA, was third from early on and although he made a late improvement, it wasn’t enough to challenge the top two.
His late attack was interrupted by having to return to the pits to fix a telemetry problem, leading the frustrated Lapierre to say over the radio “big shame, I felt I could do the fastest time”.
No other car was a serious top three threat, with Roberto Merhi in the Manor ORECA taking fourth after his late improvement served only to close the gap to Lapierre from almost a second to eight tenths.
Laurens Vanthoor was fifth in the #49 Michael Shank Racing Ligier, also improving late on in terms of time but not by enough to improve his position.
The driver who made the biggest difference with a last-gasp effort was Pipo Derani, who banged in a lap good enough to haul the #31 ESM Ligier from 10th to sixth.
Several LMP2 cars had incidents during the session, with the #28 Pegasus Racing Morgan of Remi Streibig and the #33 Eurasia ORECA of Pu Jun Jin both having offs.
Frederic Sausset qualified for the race after completing the mandatory five laps of night qualifying in his specially adapted SRT41 by OAK Racing Morgan-Nissan.
Sausset, who had both hands amputated as well as his legs above the knees after picking up a rare infection, completed six laps in the #84 car at the start of the session, recording a best time of 4m01.138s.
His team-mate Christophe Tinseau recorded the car’s best time of the session late on, setting a 3m45.178s.
FORD STRIKES FIRST IN GTE BATTLE
By Scott Mitchell
Ford claimed a provisional one-two on the provisional grid for its return to Le Mans, with all four of its GTs in the top five.
A last-gasp 3m51.185s from Dirk Muller elevated the #68 to the top of the class times, knocking Richard Westbrook and the #69 Ford down to second.
Practice pacesetter Gianmaria Bruni’s 3m51.568s in his Ferrari 488 GTE split the quartet of Fords.
Harry Tincknell was quickest in the #67 car, which wound up fourth fastest and just over a tenth quicker of Olivier Pla’s best in the #66.
The #71 AF-run 488 GTE failed to match its sister car’s pace and ended up sixth.
Giancarlo Fisichella put the #82 Risi Competizione example seventh, but had been on course to improve further before a high-speed spin at the Porsche Curves that ended the car’s running early.
With Ford and Ferrari locking out the top half of the 14-strong GTE Pro field, and Muller’s best 4.8s quicker than last year’s pole time, the remaining three manufacturers will be concerned at the fierce pace shown by the all-new turbocharged offerings.
Frederic Makowiecki was best of the rest, putting the #92 Porsche Motorsport 911 RSR eighth with a 3m54.918s that was almost two seconds behind the Risi Ferrari.
Marco Sorensen made a late improvement to go ninth, 0.3s slower than Makowiecki, for Aston Martin Racing in the #95 Vantage.
The Chevrolet Corvette C7.Rs were slowest in GTE Pro, with the #64 4.7s off the pace and the #63 an unrepresentative two seconds further back after Ricky Taylor suffered a trip into the gravel at Mulsanne Corner.
In GTE Am, Rob Bell put the AF-run Clearwater Racing Ferrari 458 Italia on top.
The on-loan McLaren driver’s 3m56.827s was three tenths quicker than Pedro Lamy’s best in the #98 Aston Martin Racing Vantage.
