Porsche 1-2-3 in Qualifying 1 at Le Mans

Neel Jani has led the Porsche LMP1 team to sweep the top three positions in a red flag marred opening qualifying session for this weekend’s Le Mans 24 Hour.

Just as he did last year, Jani trumped the two-hour Wednesday night qualifying as the leading pace rocketted by more than 4s on the corresponding session in 2014.

Jani, sharing the #18 with Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas, obliterated the previous qualifying record by just under two seconds with his 3:16.88s best around the 13.6km circuit.

Timo Bernhard had previously bettered the 2009 qualifying record with a 3:17.76s in the #17 Porsche he will share with Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley.

Bernhard would hang on to second spot with the #19 Porsche of Nick Tandy registering a 3:19.29s best in third.

“You’ve got to have a great deal of respect for the drivers if you look at these lap times,” said Fritz Enzinger, the vice president of Porsche’s LMP1 operation.

“Today was a great team effort and a nice first step into Le Mans 2015, but it isn’t anything more than this yet.

“The entire team has to cope with huge expectations and managed that. I especially want to thank them for that. Tomorrow we will see how the track conditions develop.”

Audi was left reeling at the power of Porsche with the #8 R18 e-tron quattro of Loic Duval fourth, followed by the four-ringed stablemates of the #9 in fifth and the #7 in sixth.

Toyota saw its #2 TS040 Hybrid finish seventh fastest with Stephane Sarrazin at the wheel but a long way off Porsche’s mesmerising pace.

The world champion #1 TS040 of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima was left well out of the equation in eighth, the best part of 7s behind the quickest Porsche.

Nissan had what it would describe as a decent maiden qualifying run with its trio of GT-R LM NISMOs as it concentrated on cycling its drivers through the necessary amount of laps at nightfall.

The leader of the Nissan group was Jann Mardenborough in the #23 which was 12th fastest.

Brit Harry Tincknell improved late to claim 21st while the Le Mans-only #21 entry was 31st for Lucas Ordonez.

Mardenborough says the GT-R is sharpening with each session as Nissan has arrived at the toughest motor race in the world without a previous single competitive WEC start for the front-engine, front-drive machines.

“The car feels more and more sorted with each run and there are still a lot of things we can do to improve it, such as dropping the front ride height to work better with the aero tunnels,” Mardenborough said.

Richard Bradley led the way in LMP2 with the Hong Kong-based KCMG entry clocking 3:38.03s to be 11th overall.

Nissan GT Academy winner Gaetan Paletou received a nasty scare when he crashed the #41 Greaves Gibson Nissan heavily at the Mulsanne Corner which would out the red flag at the midpoint of qualifying.

It forced the session into a lengthy delay before it was waved green again with just over 30 minutes remaining before the strict midnight finish.

Kiwi Richie Stanaway helped Aston Martin to the best GTE Pro time in the #99 Vantage while Pedro Lamy saw the #98 lead the Am class.

Webber had earlier topped the times in the four-hour practice session that was interspersed with wet running.

With weather unstable in the Le Mans area the scintillating pace Porsche displayed may yet not be surpassed for final qualifying which finishes at midnight Thursday (local time).

See below for full qualifying results

Pos	Class	Driver	Team	Car	Time
1	LMP1	N. Jani, R. Dumas, M Lieb	Porsche Team	Porsche	3m16.887s
2	LMP1	T.Bernhard, M.Webber, B.Hartley	Porsche Team	Porsche	3m17.767s
3	LMP1	N.Hulkenberg, E.Bamber, N.Tandy	Porsche Team	Porsche	3m19.297s
4	LMP1	L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi	3m19.866s
5	LMP1	F.Albuquerque, M.Bonanomi, R.Rast	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi	3m21.081s
6	LMP1	M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi	3m21.839s
7	LMP1	A.Wurz, S.Sarrazin, M.Conway	Toyota Racing	Toyota	3m23.543s
8	LMP1	A.Davidson, S.Buemi, K.Nakajima	Toyota Racing	Toyota	3m23.767s
9	LMP1	N.Prost, M.Beche, N.Heidfeld	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion/AER	3m26.874s
10	LMP1	A.Imperatori, D.Kraihamer, D.Abt	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion/AER	3m31.933s
11	LMP2	M.Howson, R.Bradley, N.Lapierre	KCMG	ORECA/Nissan	3m38.032s
12	LMP1	O.Pla, J.Mardenborough, M.Chilton	Nissan Motorsports	Nissan	3m38.468s
13	LMP2	G.Hirsch, G.Paletou, J.Lancaster	Greaves Motorsport	Gibson/Nissan	3m38.958s
14	LMP2	S.Dolan, M.Evans, O.Turvey	JOTA	Gibson/Nissan	3m39.004s
15	LMP2	R.Rusinov, J.Canal, S.Bird	G-Drive Racing	Ligier/Nissan	3m39.867s
16	LMP2	P.Thiriet, T.Gommendy, L.Badey	Thiriet by TDS Racing	ORECA/Nissan	3m39.923s
17	LMP2	C.Cumming, L.Vanthoor, K.Estre	Oak Racing	Ligier/HPD	3m40.058s
18	LMP1	S.Trummer, P.Kaffer, T.Monteiro	Team ByKolles	CLM/AER	3m40.368s
19	LMP2	N.Panciatici, P-L.Chatin, V.Capillaire	Signatech Alpine	Alpine/Nissan	3m40.438s
20	LMP2	G.Yacaman, L.Derani, R.Gonzalez	G-Drive Racing	Ligier/Nissan	3m40.967s
21	LMP1	H.Tincknell, M.Krumm, A.Buncombe	Nissan Motorsports	Nissan	3m41.400s
22	LMP2	P.Ragues, O.Webb, Z.Amberg	Team SARD Morand	Morgan/SARD	3m42.015s
23	LMP2	L.Roussel, D.Cheng, H-Pin Tung	Pegasus Racing	Morgan/Nissan	3m42.023s
24	LMP2	M.Mediani, D.Markozov, N.Minassian	SMP Racing	BR Engineering/Nissan	3m42.077s
25	LMP2	N.Leventis, D.Watts, J.Kane	Strakka Racing	Dome/Nissan	3m42.237s
26	LMP2	M.Aleshin, K.Ladygin, A.Ladygin	SMP Racing	BR Engineering/Nissan	3m42.417s
27	LMP2	K.Chandhok, M.Patterson, N.Berthon	Murphy Prototypes	ORECA/Nissan	3m44.513s
28	LMP2	S.Sharp, R.Dalziel, D.Hansson	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier/HPD	3m44.675s
29	LMP2	T.Krohn, N.Jonsson, J.Barbosa	Krohn Racing	Ligier/Judd	3m44.899s
30	LMP2	P.Perret, I.Bellarosa, J.Ibanez	Ibanez Racing	ORECA/Nissan	3m45.350s
31	LMP1	T.Matsuda, M.Shulzhitskiy, L.Ordonez	Nissan Motorsports	Nissan	3m45.807s
32	LMP2	E.Brown, J.van Overbeek, J.Fogarty	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier/HPD	3m46.165s
33	LMP2	J.Nicolet, J-M.Merlin, E.Maris	Oak Racing	Ligier/HPD	3m52.843s
34	GTE Pro	F.Rees, A.MacDowall, R.Stanaway	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	3m54.928s
35	GTE Am	P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	3m55.102s
36	GTE Pro	G.Bruni, T.Vilander, G.Fisichella	AF Corse	Ferrari	3m55.306s
37	GTE Pro	D.Turner, S.Mucke, R.Bell	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	3m55.466s
38	GTE Pro	M.Sorensen, C.Nygaard, N.Thiim	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	3m55.783s
39	GTE Pro	J.Magnussen, A.Garcia, R.Briscoe	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet	3m55.963s
40	GTE Am	F.Perrodo, E.Collard, R.Aguas	AF Corse	Ferrari	3m56.723s
41	GTE Pro	O.Gavin, T.Milner, J.Taylor	Corvette Racing	Chevrolet	3m57.081s
42	GTE Pro	R.Lietz, M.Christensen, J.Bergmeister	Porsche Team Manthey	Porsche	3m57.192s
43	GTE Pro	D.Rigon, J.Calado, O.Beretta	AF Corse	Ferrari	3m57.216s
44	GTE Am	V.Shaitar, A.Bertolini, A.Basov	SMP Racing	Ferrari	3m57.271s
45	GTE Pro	P.Pilet, F.Makowiecki, W.Henzler	Porsche Team Manthey	Porsche	3m57.667s
46	GTE Am	C.Ried, K.Al Qubaisi, K.Bachler	Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing	Porsche	3m58.259s
47	GTE Am	P.Mann, R.Giammaria, M.Cressoni	AF Corse	Ferrari	3m58.478s
48	GTE Am	P.Dempsey, P.Long, M.Seefried	Dempsey Racing – Proton	Porsche	3m58.822s
49	GTE Am	B.Sweedler, T.Bell, J.Segal	Scuderia Corsa	Ferrari	3m58.946s
50	GTE Am	J.Bleekemolen, B.Keating, M.Miller	Riley Motorsports-Ti Auto	SRT/Dodge	3m59.054s
51	GTE Am	D.Cameron, M.Griffin, A.Mortimer	AF Corse	Ferrari	3m59.091s
52	GTE Am	G.Roda, P.Ruberti, K.Poulsen	Larbre Competition	Chevrolet	3m59.522s
53	GTE Am	A.Al Faisal, K.Giermaziak, M.Avenatti	JMW Motorsport	Ferrari	4m00.551s
54	GTE Am	R.Goethe, S.Hall, F.Castellacci	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	4m01.160s
55	GTE Am	H.C.Chen, G.Vannelet, M.Parisy	Team AAI	Porsche	4m03.117s
56	GTE Am	J.San Chen, A.Kapadia, X.Maassen	Team AAI	Porsche	4m04.827s