24 Hours of Le Mans – Qualifying: Ferrari in force, Peugeot in the tough

• Unsurprisingly, the fight for the first places in these qualifications concerned Toyota et Ferrari. The sole holders of pole positions this year, the Japanese and Italian manufacturers engaged in a great battle on the eve of the Hyperpole.
• Firstly, it was the Toyota N°7 driven by Jose Maria Lopez who overhung the timesheet against discreet Ferraris and outside the qualifying zone for the Hyperpole. But everything accelerated in the second part with the appearance of the 499Ps from Maranello, the main threats to the GR010s since the start of the season.
• It was Antonio Fuoco in the N°50 Ferrari who set things straight with a lap of 3'25"213 ahead of the sister car, the N°51, by 0"199 and the two Toyotas with the N°7 in front of No. 8.
• Porsche and Cadillac share the last 4 qualifying places for the Hyperpole with the 963 No. 5 and 75 ahead of the V-Series.RN No. 1 and 2.

• Hard blow for both Peugeot 9X8 which failed to rank among the 8 fastest Hypercars in this qualifying session. The pace displayed is somewhat worrying because despite the latest adjustments by the BoP, which should normally work in their favor, the Lionesses were 2 seconds and 2"6 behind Antonio Fuoco.
• Disappointment for the only Porsche customer, that of Hertz Team JOTA. The 963 No. 38 hardly ran at all during the session. After waiting for a long time in the garage, she left it as she approached the checkerboard but was unable to complete a single timed lap. For the moment, the English team has not given any information regarding the absence of its Hypercar during these qualifications.
• On the other hand, JOTA was not idle in LM P2 since the No. 07 Oreca 28 driven by Pietro Fittipaldi dominated the rankings in this first part of qualifying. The Brazilian completed his fastest lap in 3'34 beating Louis Delétraz (Team WRT No. 751) by just two thousandths.
• As in Hypercar with Peugeot, disillusionment for the clan Alpine. None of the blue machines passed the qualifying threshold, finishing in 21st and 23rd places in the category. Only the Oreca No. 13 from Tower Motorsports did worse but only because it did not run since a chassis change was made after Steven Thomas went off the track in Free Practice.

• In GTE AM, great performance from AF Corse which placed two Ferrari 488 GTE Evos in the lead. The best time went to Alessio Rovera on the No. 83 in 3'51, 877 thousandths faster than that of Davide Rigon on the No. 37. Despite the exit in Free Practice 54, the No. 1 Corvette appears well at the top of the ranking. Third time for the Detroit machine with Nicky Catsburg.
• Rare but true fact, no Porsche 911 RSR-19 will fight for the Hyperpole. The best is only 9th, almost 1" from today's benchmark.

• Note that two red flags were waved. The first after contact between theAlpine No. 36 of Matthieu Vaxiviere and the No. 22 United Autosports of Filipe Albuquerque 50 minutes from time. The second was caused by the COOL Racing No. 32 of Malthe Jakobsen after an outing at Indianapolis.

The complete rankings

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