Toyota to start 1-2 at Le Mans 24h, as Kobayashi claims pole

Toyota’s Hypercars set the pace in the Hyperpole final qualifying session for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, locking out the first two places on the grid for this weekend’s race.

Kamui Kobayashi claimed pole in the No7 Toyota, 0.295sec ahead of Brendon Hartley in the No8 car, with the team starting as firm favourites to take a fourth successive victory.

Behind the frontrunners, Alpine and Glickenhaus battled to be best of the Hypercar rest. Just seven hundredths of a second split third-placed Nicolas Lapierre’s Alpine and Olivier Pla in the No708 Glickenhaus.

Antonio Felix Da Costa secured a convincing class pole for the Jota LMP2 car, despite a strong challenge from Team WRT’s Louis Deletraz.

Daniel Serra was hoping for pole in GTE Pro in his AF Corse Ferrari after initially going fastest of the GT cars but couldn’t beat the Porsche 911 of Dries Vanthoor.

Julien Andlauer will be the first of the GTE Am cars, leading a trio of Porsche 911s in the No88 Dempsey-Proton. His team-mate includes the oldest competitor: 75-year-old Dominique Bastien.

“To get the first Hypercar pole position is great,” said Kobayashi. “We came here with our new GR010 Hybrid for the first time and we have been constantly making adjustments to improve it.

“The team did a fantastic job to prepare a car which can achieve that lap time. I could have gone even quicker but I had a track limits penalty which was a pity. To be fastest on one lap isn’t enough; we have focused on preparing our car to be successful in the race. We’ve had a few pole positions here on our car over the last years and not won the race so we know this is no guarantee. The 24 hours are long and we always need a bit of luck.”