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Kobayashi smashes Le Mans lap record

Toyota Gazoo Racing today gave the firmest of signals to its competitors of its desire to conquer the 24 Hours of Le Mans.  The Japanese team, and two of its Japanese drivers, secured the front row of the grid for this weekend’s third round of the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship race, and smashed the qualifying lap record to bits in the process. 

Aston Martin, Ferrari, Ford, Corvette and Porsche produced a battle royal in LMGTE Pro, with the British marque coming out on top with pole and a new qualifying record as well.

Kamui Kobayashi of Toyota Gazoo Racing produced a stunning lap in the No.7 TS050 HYBRID to set a new qualifying lap record (for the current track configuration) of 3:14.791.  This smashed the old record of 3:16.887 set by Porsche’s Neel Jani in 2015 by 2.096s! Kobayashi starts the race with Mike Conway and Stéphane Sarrazin.

The No.8 Toyota of Kazuki Nakajima, which the Japanese driver will share with Sébastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson, will share the front row of the grid for the start of the 85thafter a lap time of 3:17.128 placed it in 2nd place.

Just one tenth of a second behind was the No.1 Porsche 919 Hybrid of Lotterer-Jani-Tandy who will share the second row with their team mates in the No.2 entry – the latter having to finish the day’s running prematurely after pulling off track as a precaution due to increased engine temperatures.

The third row will be filled by the No.9 Toyota TS050 of Lapierre-Kunimoto-Lopez and the ByKolles Racing ENSO CLM -Nismo of Webb-Kraihamer-Bonanomi which recorded a fastest lap in the hands of the Webb of 3:24.170.

Times tumbled in LMP2 and ORECA was once again the chassis to beat.  Alex Lynn in the No.26 G-Drive Racing entry stopped the clocks at 3:25.352 which was an astonishing 11.25 seconds faster than the previous FIA WEC LMP2 qualifying lap record.  The Briton shares the cockpit with Roman Rusinov and Pierre Thiriet.

Vitaly Petrov (Trummer-Gonzalez) in the No.24 CEFC Manor TRS Racing ORECA 07 Nissan held provisional class pole for some time with a time of 3:25.549 before being pipped by Lynn and eventually dipping to third place.  Claiming second in class was Ho-Pin Tung (Laurent-Jarvis) in the No.38 Jackie Chan DC Racing six tenths behind LMP2 pole.

Aston Martin, Ferrari, Corvette, Ford and Porsche all played their part in a thrilling qualifying session which ended with just 1.7 seconds separating the 12 cars in the LMGTE Pro category.

Darren Turner, a former 2-time class winner at Le Mans, put the No.97 Aston Martin Vantage which he will share with Jonny Adam and Daniel Serra on pole in the GTE categories with a record-breaking time of 3:50.837.

Between Turner and his AMR team mates in the No.95 (Thiim-Sørensen-Stanaway) was the No.51 Ferrari 488 GTE of James Calado (PierGuidi-Rugolo), just 0.19s seconds from the pole man.

Ferrari, Ford, Corvette and Porsche followed in quick succession behind them, the times signalling a great race ahead in this World Championship category.

The different GT marques were equally well represented in LMGTE Am, with the first four places being filled by Corvette, Aston Martin, Ferrari and Porsche.

The WEC’s Am points leading No.98 Aston Martin Vantage of Pedro Lamy-Paul Dalla Lana and Mathias Lauda challenged for the class pole throughout, finishing the third and final qualifying session 0.3s behind the Larbre Corvette.  Next highest WEC competitor was the No.77 Dempsey Proton Racing Porsche 911 RSR, the performance of Cairoli-Ried-Dienst no doubt being boosted by the presence of team owner Patrick Dempsey.

There is no track action tomorrow to allow teams time to prepare the cars for the twice-round-the-clock classic which begins at 15h00 on Saturday.

Results:

Pos  Team  Time  Gap First
1 Toyota Gazoo Racing 3:14.791
2 Toyota Gazoo Racing 3:17.128 2.337
3 Porsche LMP Team 3:17.259 2.468
4 Porsche LMP Team 3:18.067 3.276
5 Toyota Gazoo Racing 3:18.625 3.834
6 Bykolles Racing Team 3:24.170 9.379
7 G-Drive Racing 3:25.352 10.561
8 CEFC Manor TRS Racing 3:25.549 10.758
9 Jackie Chan DC Racing 3:25.911 11.120
10 Vaillante Rebellion 3:26.736 11.945
11 Vaillante Rebellion 3:26.811 12.020
12 CEFC Manor TRS Racing 3:26.871 12.080
13 TDS Racing 3:27.108 12.317
14 Signatech Alpine Matmut 3:27.517 12.726
15 Jackie Chan DC Racing 3:27.535 12.744
16 SMP Racing 3:27.782 12.991
17 Signatech Alpine Matmut 3:28.051 13.260
18 Graff 3:28.368 13.577
19 Graff 3:28.891 14.100
20 G-Drive Racing 3:28.937 14.146
21 United Autosports 3:29.151 14.360
22 Dragonspeed – 10 Star 3:29.777 14.986
23 Racing Team Nederland 3:29.976 15.185
24 Cetilar Villorba Corse 3:30.014 15.223
25 Algarve Pro Racing 3:30.164 15.373
26 Panis Barthez Competition 3:31.346 16.555
27 Tockwith Motorsports 3:32.536 17.745
28 Arc Bratislava 3:33.921 19.130
29 Idec Sport Racing 3:36.230 21.439
30 Keating Motorsports 3:37.007 22.216
31 Eurasia Motorsport 3:42.660 27.869
32 Aston Martin Racing 3:50.837 36.046
33 AF Corse 3:51.028 36.237
34 Aston Martin Racing 3:51.038 36.247
35 AF Corse 3:51.086 36.295
36 Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA 3:51.232 36.441
37 Corvette Racing – GM 3:51.484 36.693
38 Porsche GT Team 3:51.847 37.056
39 Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK 3:51.991 37.200
40 Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK 3:52.008 37.217
41 Corvette Racing – GM 3:52.017 37.226
42 Risi Competizione 3:52.138 37.347
43 Ford Chip Ganassi Team USA 3:52.178 37.387
44 Porsche GT Team 3:52.593 37.802
45 Larbre Competition 3:52.843 38.052
46 Aston Martin Racing 3:53.233 38.442
47 Scuderia Corsa 3:53.312 38.521
48 Dempsey – Proton Racing 3:53.381 38.590
49 Spirit of Race 3:53.641 38.850
50 JMW Motorsport 3:53.977 39.186
51 DH Racing 3:54.088 39.297
52 TF Sport 3:54.319 39.528
53 Beechdean AMR 3:54.328 39.537
54 Proton Competition 3:54.621 39.830
55 Clearwater Racing 3:54.955 40.164
56 Clearwater Racing 3:54.994 40.203
57 Proton Competition 3:55.468 40.677
58 Spirit of Race 3:56.301 41.510
59 Gulf Racing UK 3:56.469 41.678
60 Scuderia Corsa 3:58.249 43.458