Toyota claim provisional pole after first qualifying
In tonight’s first qualifying session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Kazuki Nakajima laid down a marker by setting the fastest lap to claim provisional pole position for the race to be run this weekend (16/17 June).
The Japanese driver, in the No.8 Toyota TS050 HYBRID which he shares with Fernando Alonso and Sébastien Buemi, set the time of 3:17:270 in the opening ten minutes of the two-hour session and the time was not bettered throughout the evening.
It was not just a Toyota Gazoo Racing 1-2 at the close, but also a Japanese 1-2 as Kamui Kobayashi was close behind with a lap of 3:17.337 in the sister No.7 car.
SMP Racing offered the closest challenge through Stephane Sarrazin’s 3:19.483 in the No.17 BR Engineering BR1-AER, while the No.1 Rebellion R13 Gibson ended up in 4th place with a time of 3:19.662 courtesy of Bruno Senna.
In LMP2, Paul-Loup Chatin set the fastest lap in the IDEC Sport ORECA 07 Gibson, and just 0.284s behind was the TDS Racing ORECA of Loïc Duval – the chassis manufacturer once again filling the first four places in the time sheets.
G-Drive Racing was 3rd and DragonSpeed 4th thanks to the Jean-Eric Vergne and Pastor Maldonado respectively.
All times can be found HERE