2016 24 Hours of Le Mans: Porsche Takes Pole of the 24 Heures du Mans Amidst Heavy Rain

[Jack Hunsley]

With heavy rain greatly interrupting the final two qualifying sessions for the 84th 24 Hours of Le Mans it is the two Porsche's which will head the field going into Sunday's race, with last year's pole sitting #2 Porsche retaking her position on pole.

As heavy rain prevented any serious challenger from making improvements it transpired that the times set on Wednesday's sole qualifying session defined the vast majority of the grid. Neel Jani's lap of 3:19.733 proved to be more than enough to secure pole, whilst the 2015 WEC championship winner Porsche was a further four tenths down in second place.

Both Toyota's out-qualified the Audi's in what was a very welcomed return to form for Toyota, even if they may be somewhat disappointed considering how strong they performed at Spa Francorchamps. It was the #6 car which rounded out the top three with the #7 and '8 Audi's in 5th and 6th.

Rebellion comfortably emerged as the leading LMP1 privateer courtesy of the fact that ByKolles was unable to run at all in Wednesday's first qualifying session due to an fire it suffered during Free Practice. However ByKolles did set a good enough time to start ahead of the LMP2 field.

In LMP2 it will be G-Drive Racing's WEC entrant #26 car that will lead the LMP2 field from class pole. Baxi DC Racing and Signatech Alpine completed the top three, with the IMSA's Michael Shank Racing car proving to be the most competitive non-WEC entrant with 5th in class and 14th overall.

Meanwhile the Garage 56 entry of SRT with quadruple amputee Frederic Sausset at the wheel managed to outqualify the #40 Krohn Racing ELMS LMP2 entry, who will line up as the slowest car in the category.

The GT classes was where the main source of drama was, but unfortunately for all the wrong reasons. There are currently serious concerns over the 'Balance of Power' in GTE Pro especially, with the Ford GT's and the Ferrari's of AF Corse a comfortable 3-4 seconds a lap quicker than the Porsche's, the Aston Martin's and the notoriously competitive Corvettes.

More specifically, it is Ford's sudden burst of speed which has led to allegations from some parties that certain teams have deliberately restricted their own potential so far this year in order to prevent their car's from being restricted in the run up to Le Mans, with the Ford seemingly capable of lapping multiple seconds quicker than the majority of the Pro field. As a result the race organizers have not ruled out enforcing in-race penalties for teams who are suspected of having sandbagged during the run up to the race, although any official confirmation has yet to be made

Regardless as it stands the two USA team Ford's will lineup up first and second in class on Ford's return to Le Man for the anniversary of their famous 1-2-3 victory in 1966. The #51 AF Corse was able to split the American Ford's from the WEC UK Ford team, with the sister AF Corse lining up 6th in class. Last year's winning Corvette will start second from last in GT Pro almost five seconds off the pace and ahead of only it's sister car which was 7 seconds slower than the Ford GT's.

Finally, in GTE Am there was fantastic news for the Asian Le Man Series as Team Clearwater Racing took pole ahead the Aston Martin entry of Dalla Lana, Laudy and Lamy. Third is the Abu Dhabi Proton racing machine which will line up ahead of the two Am AF Corse Ferrari's.

Join RaceDepartment on Saturday where we will be streaming the race live for you here to watch in the comfort of your own home! The green flag drops at 13:00 UTC(15:00 CEST) so don't be late!

24 Heures du Le Mans - Official Combined Qualifying Results

1. LMP1 - #2 Porsche Team (Dumas, Jani, Lieb) - +3:19.733 (Set in Q1)
2. LMP1 - #1 Porsche Team (Bernhard, Webber, Hartley) - +0.470 (Q1)
3. LMP1 - #6 Toyota Gazoo Racing (Sarrazin, Conway, Kobayashi) - +1.004 (Q1)
4. LMP1 - #5 Toyota Gazoo Racing (Davidson, Buemi, Nakajima) - +2.170 (Q1)
5. LMP1 - #7 Audi Sport Team Joest (Fässler, Lotterer, Tréluyer) - +3.047 (Q1)
6. LMP1 - #8 Audi Sport Team Joest (Di Grassi, Duval, Jarvis) - +3.090 (Q1)
7. LMP1 - #13 Rebellion Racing (Tüscher, Imperatori. Kraihamer) - +6.583(Q1)
8. LMP1 - #12 Rebellion Racing (Prost, Heidfeld, Piquet Jr) - +7.615 (Q1)
9. LMP1 - #4 ByKolles Racing Team (Trummer, Webb, Kaffer) - +14.435 (Q2)
10. LMP2 - #26 G-Drive Racing (Rusinov, Stevens, Rast) - +16.872 (Q1)
11. LMP2 - #35 Baxi DC Racing Alpine (Cheng, Tung, Panciatici) - +17.442 (Q1)
12. LMP2 - #36 Signatech Alpine (Menezes, Lapierre, Richelmi) - +17.492 (Q1)
13. LMP2 - #44 Manor (Graves, Rao, Merhi) - +18.304 (Q1)
14. LMP2 - #49 Michael Shank Racing (Pew, Negri Jr., Vanthoor) - +19.104 (Q1)
15. LMP2 - #31 Extreme Speed Motorsport (Dalziel, Derani, Cumming) - +19.633 (Q1)
16. LMP2 - #46 Thiriet (Thiriet, Beche, Hirakawa) - +19.642 (Q1)
17. LMP2 - #42 Strakka Racing (Leventis, Watts, Kane) - +19.661 (Q1)
18. LMP2 - #47 KCMG (Matsuda, Howson, Bradley) - +19.703 (Q1)
19. LMP2 - #23 Panis Barthez Competition (Barthez, Chatin, Buret) - +19.737 (Q1)
20. LMP2 - #33 Eurasia Motorsport (Junjin, Gommendy, De Bruijn) - +20.898 (Q1)
21. LMP2 - #38 G-Drive Racing (Dolan, Dennis, Van Der Garde) - +20.952 (Q1)
22. LMP2 - #43 RGR Sport by Morand (Gonzalez, Senna, Albuquerque) - +21.166 (Q1)
23. LMP2 - #27 SMP Racing (Minassian, Mediani, Aleshin) - +21.399 (Q1)
24. LMP2 - #28 Pegasus Racing (Taittinger, Striebig, Roussel) - +21.552 (Q2)
25. LMP2 - #30 Extreme Speed Motorsport (Sharp, Brown, Van Overbeek) - +21.673 (Q1)
26. LMP2 - #37 SMP Racing (Petrov, Shaytar, Ladygin) - +22.043 (Q2)
27. LMP2 - #25 Algarve Pro Racing (Munemann, Hoy, Pizzitola) - +22.355 (Q2)
28. LMP2 - #41 Greaves Motorsport (Rojas, Canal, Berthon) - +22.837 (Q2)
29. LMP2 - #48 Murphy Prototypes (Keating, Bleekemolen, Goosens) - +23.775 (Q1)
30. LMP2 - #34 Race Performance (Leutwiler, Nakano, Winslow) - +23.857 (Q1)
31. LMP2 - #22 SO24 (Capillaire, Maris, Coleman) - +24.614 (Q2)
32. G56 - #84 SRT 41 (Sausset, Tinseua, Bouvet) - +25.445 (Q1)
33. LMP2 - #40 Krohn Racing (Krohn, Jönsson, Barbosa) - +25.480 (Q1)
34. GTE Pro - #68 Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA (Hand, Müller, Bourdais) - +31.452 (Q1)
35. GTE Pro - #69 Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA (Briscoe, Westbrook, Dixon) - +31.764 (Q1)
36. GTE Pro - #51 AF Corse (Bruni, Calado, Pier Guidi) - +31.835 (Q1)
37. GTE Pro - #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK (Franchitti, Priaulx, Tincknell) - +31.857 (Q1)
38. GTE Pro - #66 Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK (Johnson, Mücke, Pla) - +32.305 (Q1)
39. GTE Pro - #71 AF Corse (Rigon, Bird, Bertolini) - +32.775 (Q1)
40. GTE Pro - #82 Risi Competizione (Fisichella, Vilander, Malucelli) - +33.443 (Q1)
41. GTE Pro - #92 Porsche Motorsport (Makowiecki, Bamber, Bergmeister) - +35.185 (Q1)
42. GTE Pro - #95 Aston Martin Racing (Thiim, Sørensen, Turner) - +35.528 (Q1)
43. GTE Pro - #91 Porsche Motorsport (Pilet, Estre, Tandy) - +35.599 (Q1)
44. GTE Pro - #97 Aston Martin Racing (Stanaway, Rees, Adam) - +35.647 (Q1)
45. GTE Pro - #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing (Lietz, Christensen, Eng) - +35.693 (Q1)
46. GTE Pro - #64 Corvette Racing (Gavin, Milner, Taylor) - +36.115 (Q1)
47. GTE Am - #61 Clearwater Racing (Sun, Sawa, Bell) - +37.094 (Q1)
48. GTE Am - #98 Aston Martin Racing (Dalla Lana, Lamy, Lauda) - +37.495 (Q1)
49. GTE Am - #88 Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing (Al Qubaisi, Hansson, Long) - +37.780 (Q2)
50. GTE Am - #55 AF Corse (Cameron, Griffin, Scott) - +37.863 (Q1)
51. GTE Am - #83 AF Corse (Perrodo, Collard, Aguas) - +38.009 (Q1)
52. GTE Pro - #63 Corvette Racing (Magnussen, Garcia, Taylor) - +38.234 (Q1)
53. GTE Am - #50 Larbre Competition (Yamagishi, Ragues, Belloc) - +38.285 (Q1)
54. GTE Am - #60 Formula Racing (Laursen, Mac Jensen, Nielsen) - +39.027 (Q1)
55. GTE Am - #78 KCMG (Ried, Henzler, Camathias) - +39.301 (Q2)
56. GTE Am - #62 Scuderia Corsa (Sweedler, Bell, Segal) - +40.375 (Q1)
57. GTE Am - #89 Proton Competition (MacNeil, Keen, Miller) - +40.374 (Q2)
58. GTE Am - #86 Gulf Racing (Wainwright, Carroll, Barker) - +41.313 (Q1)
59. GTE Am - #57 Team AAI (O'Connell, Bryant, Patterson) - +42.593 (Q1)
60. GTE Am - #99 Aston Martin Racing (Howard, Griffin, Hirsch) - +43.415 (Q1)​

 

[Rodent]

Rebellion was fastest in the speed trap, c'mon Hybrids, break down!

 

[Andrew Harper]

Rebellion was fastest in the speed trap, c'mon Hybrids, break down!

Well you may get your wish, not one of the LMP1-H cars hasn't had some sort of serious problem so far this year. I think the biggest issue will not be reliability but the weather.

The rain was seriously hard last night, almost race stopping if it happens on Saturday/Sunday.

I was impressed by the pace of the Toyota's in the wet though. A few years back they were awesome in the dry but terrible in the wet so it appears they've improved that area of the car.

Looks like it's gonna be a great race (and I'm at work! )

 

[Brownninja97]

Well you may get your wish, not one of the LMP1-H cars hasn't had some sort of serious problem so far this year. I think the biggest issue will not be reliability but the weather.

The rain was seriously hard last night, almost race stopping if it happens on Saturday/Sunday.

I was impressed by the pace of the Toyota's in the wet though. A few years back they were awesome in the dry but terrible in the wet so it appears they've improved that area of the car.

Looks like it's gonna be a great race (and I'm at work! )

porsche seem to potentially have the most reliable car.

Of the issues they have had so far its been hybrid issues which they fixed with going to the 2015 spec battery which matters less due to the ceiling on the hybrids reducing the energy output and also it extremely reliable compared to the 2016 one.

It likely means they are using the 2015 spec engine which is slightly heavier but kicks out around 50 more horses.

afterthat they had gearbox damage if i remember correctly due to two punctures in the front left at spa. Car wasnt happy with the wheels going at different speeds. i guess you could say they were missing their balance of performance .

Toyota is an oddball and im not sure if they fixed their issues yet. Audi is ugly so they lose by default. tbh though ford are likely sandbagging so much that they might be in with a chance of winning lmp1

 

[Andrew Harper]

tbh though ford are likely sandbagging so much that they might be in with a chance of winning lmp1

I laughed watching an onboard with the Audi on the Mulsanne, on corner exit they obviously had a lot of acceleration with the hybrid system but as it caught the Ford it actually had trouble getting past. It was that fast in a straight line!

Although I'm a big Mazda fan (and they still have that honour of being the only Japanese company to win) I kind of hope Toyota do it this year, maybe with a Rebellion on the overall podium as well.

Considering Toyota have developed an all new drivetrain this year what they've achieved so far is impressive.

 

[Rodent]

Kobayashi did an impressive run the final minutes last night so you never know. I can't help but feel it would be funny if Porches celebrating instead of getting some final testing/data collecting comes back to bite them in the ass.

Ford I feel will either dominate completely or fail spectacularly, can't really see any middle ground. That said the 488s seems pretty competitive even if Fisichella did his best impression of what it looks like when I try my hand at Le Mans in the sims.

 

[Brownninja97]

I laughed watching an onboard with the Audi on the Mulsanne, on corner exit they obviously had a lot of acceleration with the hybrid system but as it caught the Ford it actually had trouble getting past. It was that fast in a straight line!

Although I'm a big Mazda fan (and they still have that honour of being the only Japanese company to win) I kind of hope Toyota do it this year, maybe with a Rebellion on the overall podium as well.

Considering Toyota have developed an all new drivetrain this year what they've achieved so far is impressive.

i personally dont care who wins as long as its not audi.

 

[Rodent]

I dunno, Allan McNishs new hairdo flopping with joy would be entertaining I bet. Forza Audi ( if Rebellion doesn't win ofc. )