Porsche have clinched pole for the 2016 24 hours of Le Mans race during qualifying with the No. 2 Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 car.
Neel Jani set the fastest lap of the week during qualifying for Porsche with a time of 3 mins 19.733 seconds. Jani will share driving duties of the No. 2 Porsche with Romain Dumas and Marc Leib, making it his second consecutive pole and the 18th pole for Porsche in Le Mans.
The qualifying session threw a curve ball at the teams when the weather gods decided to literally rain on their parade. The third session of qualifying was red flagged due to track being super wet. Even the Audi R8 safety car was seen sliding about scrambling for grip at the Circuit de La Sarthe. Due to the weather, none of the teams were able to improve on their times set during the previous dry sessions so the standings remained the same as before.
The No. 1 Porsche of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernheard qualified second locking out the front row for Porsche. The second row was claimed by Toyota Gazoo Racing’s two TS050 Hybrid cars with the No. 6 car of Kamui Kobayashi, Stéphane Sarrazin and Mike Conway in third followed by No. 5 Toyota of Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima starting from fourth place.
The Audi’s had to settle for the third row as Marcel Fassler, André Lotterer and Benoît Treluyer in the No. 7 Audi only managed to qualify fifth with the No. 8 Audi of Lucas di Grassi, Loïc Duval and Oliver Jarvis.
In the GTE category, Ford and Ferrari dominated the field as Aston Martins, Porsches and Corvettes were not able to challenge them due to the changing weather conditions. The two Ford GTs have locked out the front row in the LMGTE Pro class with the AF Corse Ferrari setting only the third fastest time in qualifying. The No. 51 Ferrari GTE Pro car is now sandwiched between all four Ford GTs. The No. 68 and 69 Ford GTs are in front of the Ferrari with the No. 68 and 67 cars which will start behind in respective order.
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