On Saturday, the classic Marathon in Le Mans starts from pole position with the #6 Porsche Penske crew – on Thursday evening Kevin Estre won the qualifying final, completing a lap around the Sarthe ring in 3:24.634.
This time, at the very end of the session, which Le Mans calls Hyperpole, Estre showed off driving a Porsche 963 hypercar, just 0.148 seconds ahead of Cadillac factory team racer Alex Lynn. This is the 35-year-old French pilot’s first performance in the WEC, but the car of the famous German brand will start from pole position for the 19th time during the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The countdown goes back to 1963, when qualifying began to be held before the start of this marathon. The last time a Porsche sports prototype started the 24 Hours of Le Mans from pole position was in 2016.
“It was crazy because we were the last in a line of cars, there was traffic on the track and I didn’t do a perfect lap, but I felt the tires were gradually warming up,” a satisfied Kevin shared his story. impressions. “After that, on the second fast lap, I was sure I wouldn’t have enough fuel. But the radio engineers pushed me and I was able to make excellent use of the slipstream behind an LMP2 car.
I had to overtake her at the turn in Indianapolis, but the person driving blocked me and it was not easy to stay ahead of him. But I was happy that it worked, because then I completed the Porsche Curve series perfectly. And this circle turned out perfect. When I crossed the finish line I still didn’t know what my time was, but I felt like it was a good lap!”
The Ferrari drivers in the 499P hypercars could not complete their qualifying laps that quickly – the best of them was Alessandro Pier Guidi (crew #51), who showed the fourth result and was more than half a second behind the pole time.
In the LMP2 class, the best time in qualifying was set by Louis Deletraz, who plays for the American team AO by TF. His time of 3:33.217 reflects the speed difference between hypercars and the Oreca 07 sports prototypes in which all LMP2 drivers compete.
In LMGT3, qualifying was won by American Brendan Irib with the McLaren 720S GT3 Evo sports car of the Inception Racing team. In fact, Irib is a world-class professional gamer and programmer who has made a fortune thanks to his success in this field, and he races in what is called ‘in his spare time’. And this Le Mans is the third in his career.
The final half-hour qualifying session, which took place in the evening, was followed by an awards ceremony for the Hyperpole winners, after which the final, fourth training session began, which ended almost at night – at 11 p.m. local time.
Friday’s main event is the traditional Pilots’ Parade, which takes place in the center of Le Mans from 4pm to 7pm.
Source: F1 News
I am Christopher Clyde, an experienced journalist and content writer with a passion for sports. I have been writing about Formula 1 news for the past five years and am currently employed as an author at athletistic.com, one of the top sports websites in the US.