24h of Le Mans 2015: Porsche complete 1-2-3 qualifying lockout

[Jack Hunsley]

Porsche will start the 2015 24 Hours of Le Mans from first, second and third on the grid after their three cars rounded off a dominant qualifying display on Thursday night.

Of the three Porsche entries it will be the #18 entry that will lead the grid off from the green flag on Saturday afternoon, ahead on the #17 and 'Le Mans special' #19 car of Hulkenberg, Bamber and Tandy.

Behind the Porsches will unsurprisingly be the three Audi's, who rest in 'No Man's Land' two seconds down on Porsche and two seconds clear of Toyota, with the #8 car of Di Grassi, Duval and Jarvis heading the championship leading #7 entry of Lotterer, Fassler and Treluyer. Meanwhile, as mentioned, Toyota will start 7th and 8th with the #1 car starting 8th, highlighted just how far Toyota have fallen from grace this season.

Elsewhere in LMP1 Rebellion marked their return to the WEC by rounding off a solid qualifying session with 9th and 10th place just three seconds slower than the trailing Toyota, Team ByKolles starts 11th with their best effort being four seconds slower than the #13 Rebellion, whilst Nissan marked their return to Le Mans with 13th, 18th and 22nd on the grid.

In LMP2 the #47 KCMG entry which currently lies 3rd in the overall standings will start as the lead LMP2 car ahead of ELMS entrant Greaves Motorsport, with overall LMP2 leader G-Drive Racing only able to manage 4th and 8th in qualifying.

Finally, the two GT class poles were separated by just two tenths of a second come the checkered flag as Aston Martin asserted their dominance on both categories; starting 1-2-3 in GTE Pro. Meanwhile the #63 Corvette entries 4th placed grid slot will go to waste after the team withdrew the car following a crash in the final qualifying session whilst Jan Magnussen was at the wheel.

The 83rd 24 Hours of Le Mans kicks off on Saturday at 15:00 local time.

2015 24 Hours of Le Mans Official Results
1. LMP1 - #18 Porsche Team (Dumas, Jani, Lieb) - 3:16.887
2. LMP1 - #17 Porsche Team (Bernhard, Webber, Hartley) - +0.880
3. LMP1 - #19 Porsche Team (Hülkenberg, Bamber, Tandy) - +1.975
4. LMP1 - #8 Audi Sport Team Joest (Di Grassi, Duval, Jarvis) - +2.979
5. LMP1 - #7 Audi Sport Team Joest (Lotterer, Fässler, Treluyer) - +3.674
6. LMP1 - #9 Audi Sport Team Joest (Albuquerque, Bonanomi, Rast) - +4.194
7. LMP1 - #2 Toyota Racing (Wurz, Sarrazin, Conway) - +6.656
8. LMP1 - #1 Toyota Racing (Davidson, Buemi, Nakajima) - +6.880
9. LMP1 - #12 Rebellion Racing (Prost, Heidfeld, Beche) - +9.987
10. LMP1 - #13 Rebellion Racing (Kraihamer, Imperatori, Abt) - +15.046
11. LMP1 - #4 Team ByKolles (Trummer, Monteiro, Kaffer) - +19.938
12. LMP2 - #47 KCMG (Howson, Bradley, Lapierre) - +21.145
13. LMP1 - #23 Nissan Motorsports (Pla, Mardenborough, Chilton) - +21.581
14. LMP2 - #41 Greaves Motorsport (Hirsch, Lancaster, Wirdheim) - +22.071
15. LMP2 - #38 JOTA Sport (Dolan, Turvey, Evans) - +22.117
16. LMP2 - #26 G-Drive Racing (Rusinov, Canal, Bird) - +22.980
17. LMP2 - #46 Thiriet by TDS Racing (Thiriet, Badey, Gommendy) - +23.036
18. LMP1 - #21 Nissan Motorsport (Shulzhitskiy, Ordóñez, Matsuda) - +23.105
19. LMP2 - #34 OAK Racing (Cumming, Vanthoor, Estre) - +23.171
20. LMP2 - #36 Signatech Alpine (Panciatici, Chatin, Capillaire) - +23.551
21. LMP2 - #28 G-Drive Racing (Yacamán, González, Derani) - +24.080
22. LMP1 - #22 Nissan Motorsport (Tincknell, Buncombe, Krumm) - +23.105
23. LMP2 - #48 Murphy Prototypes (Chandhok. Berthon, Patterson) - +24.940
24. LMP2 - #43 Team SARD Morand (Webb, Ragues, Amberg) - +25.128
25. LMP2 - #29 Pegasus Racing (Roussel, Cheng, Tung) - +25.136
26. LMP2 - #27 SMP Racing (Mediani, Minassian, Markozov) - +25.190
27. LMP2 - #42 Strakka Racing (Leventis, Kane, Watts) - +25.350
28. LMP2 - #37 SMP Racing (Aleshin, A. Ladygin, K. Ladygin) - +25.530
29. LMP2 - #30 Extreme Speed Motorsport (Sharp, Dalziel, Hansson) - +25.975
30. LMP2 - #31 Extreme Speed Motorsports (Brown. Fogarty, Van Overbeek) - +27.744
31. LMP2 - #40 Krohn Racing (Krohn. Jönsson, Barbosa) - +27.967
32. LMP2 - #45 Ibañez Racing (Ibañez, Bellarosa, Perret) - +28.463
33. LMP2 - #35 OAK Racing (Nicolet, Merlin, Maris) - +35.956
34. GTE Pro - #99 Aston Martin Racing V8 (Rees, MacDowall, Stanaway) - +38.041
35. GTE Am - #98 Aston Martin Racing (Dalla Lana, Lamy, Lauda) - +38.215
36. GTE Pro - #97 Aston Martin Racing (Turner, Mücke, Bell) - +38.579
37. GTE Pro - #95 Aston Martin Racing (Nygaard, Sørensen, Thiim) - +38.896
38. GTE Pro - #63 Corvette Racing-GM (Magnussen, Garcia, Briscoe) - +39.076
39. GTE Am - #83 AF Corse (Perrodo, Collard, Águas) - +39.836
40. GTE Pro - #64 Corvette Racing-GM (Gavin, Milner, Taylor) - +40.194
41. GTE Pro - #91 Porsche Team Manthey (Lietz, Christensen, Bergmeister, Müller) - +40.305
42. GTE Pro - #71 AF Corse (Rigon, Calado, Beretta) - +40.329
43. GTE Am - #72 SMP Racing (Shaytar, Bertolini, Basov) - +40.384
44. GTE Pro - #51 AF Corse (Bruni, Vilander, Fisichella) - +40.616
45. GTE Pro - #92 Porsche Team Manthey (Pilet, Makowiecki, Henzler, Müller) - +40.780
46. GTE Am - #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing (Ried, Bachler, Al Qubaisi) - +41.372
47. GTE Am - #77 Dempsey Racing-Proton (Dempsey, Long, Seefried) - +41.935
48. GTE Am - #62 Scuderia Corsa (Sweedler, Bell, Segal) - +42.059
49. GTE Am - #53 Riley Motorsports-TI Auto (Bleekemolen, Keating, Miller) - +42.167
50. GTE Am - #55 AF Corse (Cameron, Griffin, Mortimer) - +42.204
51. GTE Am - #50 Larbre Competition (Roda, Ruberti, Poulsen) - +42.635
52. GTE Am - #61 AF Corse (Mann, Gianmaria, Cressoni) - +43.424
53. GTE Am - #66 JMW Motorsport (Alfaisal, Giermaziak, Avenatti) - +43.664
54. GTE Am - #96 Aston Martin Racing (Goethe, Hall, Castellacci) - +44.273
55. GTE Am - #68 Team AAI (H.C. Chen, Vannelet, Parisy) - +45.902
56. GTE Am - #67 Team AAI (J. S. Chen, Kapadia, Maassen) - +47.940

 

[R.J. O'Connell]

No time like the present to make my picks.

Porsche clearly have all the pace to win on paper. But time and time again, Audi have shown that their experience on this stage, their resiliency, and the skill and synergy of their drivers and engineers is unmatched. Toyota came in with more speed last year and still lost. Porsche had all the speed to win the last two rounds and didn't. They'll need to dig deep to reverse this trend, but I'm not betting on it. Lotterer/Fassler/Treluyer - and Gade win their fourth LM24 in five years, to set the record for the most wins by a single driver combination and cement their place as racing legends. I hate that Nissan won't be a factor, barring the absolutely insane and unforeseen.

GTE Am is an easy pick - I'm going with the Dalla Lana/Lamy/Lauda team to win as they did in Silverstone and Spa. The real estate broker, the endurance racing legend, and the son of an F1 legend who himself has spent over a decade bouncing from series to series in auto racing's wilderness, unable to find the pace everywhere from GP2 to DTM to A1GP, Porsche Supercup, and even NASCAR's European series - now finally evoking memories of his three-time champion father. Though if the Riley Viper wins, I will not complain for a second.

GTE Pro will be tougher. Aston Martin were 1-2-3 in class, but AF Corse come in having all the success in recent seasons. I didn't expect Corvette to factor in for victory before the 63 was withdrawn. My heart leans towards the 95 and 99 teams - I'm a big fan of Nicki Thiim and our own Fernando Rees. But anything can happen, and this class is close. Given that, I favor experience here, and the trio of Bruni/Vilander/Fisichella will win a hard-fought fight for their third victory as a combination for the ghastly-liveried AF Corse Ferrari.

Toughest call of all is LMP2. It's impossible to undervalue what Nicolas Lapierre brings to KCMG from Toyota. JOTA Sport won my respect after last year, despite being a heavy backer of G-Drive/OAK and the 35 entry - and Mitch Evans is a great pick to succeed Nissan-bound Harry Tincknell. Having said that, I think this time G-Drive Racing gets it done, as Rusinov/Canal/Bird deliver the goods in what will be a tightly-fought division - I wholly expect this to be all wrong. Enjoy LMP2 as you know it, it's going away soon.

 

[Torcano]

If Porsche manages to stay in front towards the end of the race during the happy hours (given that they don't run into much issues ofcourse) Audi will for certain get stuffed considering the pace advantage of the Porsches. But it has been shown time and time again that being the fastest doesn't mean jack if they are not consistently reliable. I'll be rooting for the #7 Audi of Lotterer, Fässler and Treluyer while the missus is betting on the #19 Porsche because she thinks Hülkenberg looks cute and the white color suits the car much better . The folks that my money and hopes are riding on have a lot of work cut out for them.

 

[brooptss]

Looking forward to LM2015! Can someone please tell me what the best websites are for live-streaming/telemetry/live timing/information etc.??

 

[Bram Hengeveld]

Looking forward to LM2015! Can someone please tell me what the best websites are for live-streaming/telemetry/live timing/information etc.??

Check back tomorrow http://www.racedepartment.com/live-stream/

 

[4 8 15 16 23 42 108]

I really have no clue, who will win in each class. Like it is every year for me
LMP 1: While it is easy not to bet on Porsche, it is quite tough to imagine, no single one of three oh-so-fast cars will finish without major issues. I think one will gaz on, while the other two will just cover Audi. Yeah, I think for once we will have a new brand win it, and that's fine by me (long time Audi fan, but I love this close racing)! Bet: Any Porsche
LMP 2: No chance to realistically bet on any car; playing (and driving) lottery this is. I support Jota Sport, but the new KCMG seems very fast... Bet: Impossible, but KCMG
GT Pro: Aston Martin seems to be overBOPped a little. The Ferrari will have trouble catching them. Porsche will not collect many honors this year, just no speed. I am sad the Magnussen Corvette has been withdrawn. That's one strong car out way to early. Bet: A gran tourismo sports car from an Island somewhere near France
GT Am: Last year the Dalla Lana car finished five laps down. Can't remember why, but I feel the car will not win it. Just a feeling I have. But they are the fastest, that's for sure. Bet: Ferrari #83

Seriously, all except LMP 1 is complete guessing and will not happen (go 911s lol)

 

[Grand Tourist]

Easy : all 3 Porsches crash with all 3 Audis and the Toyotas crash into that pile of heap. Then the Nissans battle it out with the fastest of the LMP2's eventually winning by half a car length in a 23 hour dog fight
All of the above comments are sooooooooooo unrealistic

 

[Frederic Schornstein]

Easy : all 3 Porsches crash with all 3 Audis and the Toyotas crash into that pile of heap. Then the Nissans battle it out with the fastest of the LMP2's eventually winning by half a car length in a 23 hour dog fight
All of the above comments are sooooooooooo unrealistic

Good theory, but by the looks of it I will say Jota Sport will win overall Nissan has no chance against the mighty LMP2 cars

Sorry for the jokes. I hoped for a good performance by Nissan, but I thought it will get though for them, but not even beating LMP2 cars, that is something even the privateer Rebellion managed with their new R-One last season and they outqualified the best LMP2 by 8 seconds...
I expect much better preperation from a big manufacturer loom where Porsche was even in their first race last year.

 

[Yannick Van Broeck]

Good theory, but by the looks of it I will say Jota Sport will win overall Nissan has no chance against the mighty LMP2 cars

Sorry for the jokes. I hoped for a good performance by Nissan, but I thought it will get though for them, but not even beating LMP2 cars, that is something even the privateer Rebellion managed with their new R-One last season and they outqualified the best LMP2 by 8 seconds...
I expect much better preperation from a big manufacturer loom where Porsche was even in their first race last year.

Agreed, I hoped Nissan would've been competitive but it's not the case. Apparently their hybrid system is not working but it is in the car (has to be according to regulations) and they had a lot of problems with their tires. But again, it shouldn't be a 20 second gap.

About the race, I'm not a fan of one particular team but I feel Porsche have the biggest chance this time. JOTA sport in LMP2 have been very impressive this season and the Aston Marton of Rees and Stanaway also looks good for the top podium spot although they might have the roaring Ferrari of Bruni and Fissichella right behind them.

Anyway, fingers crossed for an exciting day!