On the 75th anniversary of its 24 Hours of Le Mans debut, Cadillac threw down the gauntlet to its Hypercar rivals in qualifying in France today (11 June), as Alex Lynn leapt to the top of the timing sheets with a blistering effort almost two seconds quicker than last year’s pole position.
Early on in the 30-minute session, FIA World Endurance Championship pace-setter Ferrari looked set to continue its 2025 dominance, but as the clock ticked down, the lap times tumbled – and the Prancing Horse’s rivals came increasingly to the fore.
Porsche Penske Motorsport, IMSA regular Cadillac Whelen and BMW M Team WRT all enjoyed a spell at the top of the timing screens, before Lynn made his move with barely two minutes to go behind the wheel of the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R.
“That was lovely!” the Briton enthused. “The car was great – honestly, no complaints. I didn’t make any set-up adjustments between the first and second runs and just improved my performance. It’s a strong start – we’ll take that one.”
Lynn wound up a scant 0.040s clear of Dries Vanthoor, who had no lap time on the board at all with ten minutes of the session remaining in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8. Under significant pressure, the Dutchman produced a stellar effort to catapult from last to first in the closing stages, before Lynn narrowly demoted him to second.
Antonio Giovinazzi rounded out the top three in the championship-leading #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P – three tenths-of-a-second adrift of the ultimate pace – with last year’s pole-sitter Kévin Estre needing just one set of tyres to go fourth-quickest, representing a welcome fillip for Porsche Penske Motorsport in what has been a challenging campaign to-date for the reigning world champions.
FP1 star Sébastien Bourdais put the second Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA entry fifth in the final order, ahead of Antonio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari. The biggest surprise of qualifying was the failure to progress to Hyperpole of the former race-winning #7 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing GR010 Hybrid, as Nyck de Vries missed the cut in 17th place after his two quickest laps were compromised by yellow flags and traffic.
Ahmad Al Harthy unleashed a late ‘flyer’ to put Team WRT’s BMW M4 LMGT3 at the head of the order in LMGT3 qualifying, as all nine marques represented in the category successfully booked a berth in tomorrow’s brace of Hyperpole shootouts.
For much of the session, it was the FP1 pace-setting #78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3 in the hands of Arnold Robin that led the way, until Al Harthy vaulted to the summit of the standings in the car he shares with motorcycling legend Valentino Rossi. As he bids to make amends after crashing out of podium contention at La Sarthe last year, the Omani has got off to the perfect start.
Ian James ultimately wound up second in the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3, just over two-tenths-of-a-second adrift of Al Harthy, with Ryan Hardwick rounding out the top three for last year’s world champions and Le Mans winners Manthey.
Robin advanced safely through to Hyperpole in fourth, followed by Tom van Rompuy in the best-placed TF Sport Corvette – although arguably the biggest upset of the session was the failure to progress of Ben Keating in the championship-leading sister #33 entry, with the American able to manage no better than 17th in the 24-car field.
Proton Competition secured sixth spot with its Spa podium-finishing #88 Ford Mustang LMGT3 in the hands of Stefano Gattuso, with both Vista AF Corse Ferraris and both United Autosport McLarens – on the 30th anniversary of the famous British brand’s historic Le Mans victory – similarly set to fight again tomorrow.
On a difficult day for Iron Lynx, meanwhile – with a crash for Stephen Grove in FP1 and a breakdown for Andrew Gilbert midway through qualifying, bringing out the first of two red flags – Martin Berry provided some much-needed cheer by hauling the Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 into Hyperpole for the first time.
In the 17-car LMP2 class, the #199 AO by TF Sport Oreca-Gibson topped the times as Louis Délétraz lapped in 3m35.472s. The Swiss ace and the American-entered team are gunning for a second consecutive pole position at Le Mans this year.
The fan-favourite ‘Spike the Purple Dragon’ car, which also counts PJ Hyett and Dane Cameron on the driving strength, went 0.185s quicker than the second-placed #22 United Autosports entry piloted by Ben Hanley.
Rounding out the top three in LMP2, which is the longest-running rules-set category ever at Le Mans, was the #45 Algarve PRO Racing entry. Young talent Alexander Quinn claimed the best lap for the car he will race with Nicky Catsburg and George Kurtz.
The on-track action continues with FP2 tonight, ahead of the remaining two free practice sessions and all-important Hyperpole showdown tomorrow (Thursday, 12 June).
Check out the full qualifying times
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