Porsche blocks out top three spots at Le Mans

Neel Jani has secured pole position for the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hour after final qualifying

Neel Jani has secured pole position for the 2015 Le Mans 24 Hour after final qualifying

Porsche sealed the first three positions after surviving the final part of qualifying for the Le Mans 24 Hour with its prodigious pace intact.

Neel Jani’s benchmark time of 3:16.88s in the #18 Porsche he is sharing with Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb established in Q1 on Wednesday night proved untouchable.

Timo Bernhard improved the time of the #17 919 with a 3:17.76s best lap to move within 1s of Jani.

Nick Tandy also improved the time of the #19 Porsche which moved the machine he is sharing with Kiwi Earl Bamber and F1 driver Nico Hulkenberg to under 2s of the leading 919.

Oliver Jarvis will start the twice-around-the-clock classic in fourth place behind the wheel of the #8 Audi R18 e-tron quattro he is sharing with Loic Duval and Lucas di Grassi.

The Silverstone and Spa winning #7 Audi driven by Benoit Treluyer was fifth ahead of the #9 R18 driven by Rene Rast.

Toyota will start from the fourth row with Mike Conway in the #2 TS040 in seventh ahead of the defending WEC champion #1 Toyota of Anthony Davidson.

The Rebellion Racing R-ONE AERs of Matias Beche and Alexandre Imperatori complete the top 10.

Tiago Monteiro was 11th in the lone Team ByKOLLES CLM.

Nissan’s leading GT-R LM NISMO at the hands of last year’s LMP2 champion Harry Tincknell was 12th in the #22 machine with a 3:36.99s best lap.

The #23 Nissan of Max Chilton will start from 13th while the third GT-R LM at the hands of Tsugio Matsuda made huge gains to claim 16th spot.

The Hong Kong-based KCMG remains on the LMP2 pole with Richard Bradley’s time of 3:38.03s from opening qualifying remaining unbeaten.

Kiwi star Richie Stanaway saw his Wednesday night time good enough to remain on pole in the GTE Pro ranks in the #99 Aston Martin Vantage.

“First time at Le Mans & qualified on pole position! Thanks to everybody at @AMR_Official  Now let’s focus on the race on Saturday,” Stanaway tweeted.

Ferrari will occupy the top two spots on the GTE Pro grid after Gianmaria Bruni vaulted the #51 AF Corse 458 Italia up the order in the final session.

Pedro Lamy also remained the quickest in GTE Am in another Aston Martin Vantage.

Jan Magnussen was cleared of injury after being taken to the medical centre following a heavy impact which brought about an early close to the opening part of Qualifying 2.

Magnussen crashed heavily in the #63 Corvette he is sharing with Ryan Briscoe and Antonio Garcia exiting the high-speed Porsche Curves.

Less than an hour after the completion of qualifying, the team announced that the Corvette sustained too much damage in order for repairs to be made to start in the race.

The crash was the result of a mechanical issue.

The final part of qualifying was interrupted by several incidents highlighted by the #67 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR spectacularly catching fire down Mulsanne straight.

See below for full Le Mans 24 Hour starting order

Pos Class Driver Team Car Time
1 LMP1 R.Dumas, N.Jani, 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 3m18.862s
4 LMP1 L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 3m19.866s
5 LMP1 M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 3m20.561s
6 LMP1 F.Albuquerque, M.Bonanomi, R.Rast Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 3m20.997s
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 3m28.930s
11 LMP1 S.Trummer, P.Kaffer, T.Monteiro Team ByKolles CLM/AER 3m36.825s
12 LMP1 H.Tincknell, M.Krumm, A.Buncombe Nissan Motorsports Nissan 3m36.995s
13 LMP1 O.Pla, J.Mardenborough, M.Chilton Nissan Motorsports Nissan 3m37.291s
14 LMP2 M.Howson, R.Bradley, N.Lapierre KCMG ORECA/Nissan 3m38.032s
15 LMP1 T.Matsuda, M.Shulzhitskiy, L.Ordonez Nissan Motorsports Nissan 3m38.691s
16 LMP2 R.Rusinov, J.Canal, S.Bird G-Drive Racing Ligier/Nissan 3m38.939s
17 LMP2 G.Hirsch, G.Paletou, J.Lancaster Greaves Motorsport Gibson/Nissan 3m38.958s
18 LMP2 S.Dolan, M.Evans, O.Turvey JOTA Gibson/Nissan 3m39.004s
19 LMP2 N.Panciatici, P-L.Chatin, V.Capillaire Signatech Alpine Alpine/Nissan 3m39.699s
20 LMP2 P.Thiriet, T.Gommendy, L.Badey Thiriet by TDS Racing ORECA/Nissan 3m39.805s
21 LMP2 C.Cumming, L.Vanthoor, K.Estre Oak Racing Ligier/HPD 3m40.058s
22 LMP2 K.Chandhok, M.Patterson, N.Berthon Murphy Prototypes ORECA/Nissan 3m40.690s
23 LMP2 G.Yacaman, L.Derani, R.Gonzalez G-Drive Racing Ligier/Nissan 3m40.967s
24 LMP2 P.Ragues, O.Webb, Z.Amberg Team SARD Morand Morgan/SARD 3m41.250s
25 LMP2 L.Roussel, D.Cheng, H-Pin Tung Pegasus Racing Morgan/Nissan 3m42.023s
26 LMP2 M.Mediani, D.Markozov, N.Minassian SMP Racing BR Engineering/Nissan 3m42.077s
27 LMP2 N.Leventis, D.Watts, J.Kane Strakka Racing Dome/Nissan 3m42.237s
28 LMP2 M.Aleshin, K.Ladygin, A.Ladygin SMP Racing BR Engineering/Nissan 3m42.417s
29 LMP2 S.Sharp, R.Dalziel, D.Hansson Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier/HPD 3m42.453s
30 LMP2 E.Brown, J.van Overbeek, J.Fogarty Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier/HPD 3m44.631s
31 LMP2 T.Krohn, N.Jonsson, J.Barbosa Krohn Racing Ligier/Judd 3m44.854s
32 LMP2 P.Perret, I.Bellarosa, J.Ibanez Ibanez Racing ORECA/Nissan 3m45.350s
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 Pro G.Bruni, T.Vilander, G.Fisichella AF Corse Ferrari 3m55.025s
36 GTE Am P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 3m55.102s
37 GTE Pro D.Turner, S.Mucke, R.Bell Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 3m55.466s
38 GTE Pro D.Rigon, J.Calado, O.Beretta AF Corse Ferrari 3m55.582s
39 GTE Pro M.Sorensen, C.Nygaard, N.Thiim Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 3m55.783s
40 GTE Pro J.Magnussen, A.Garcia, R.Briscoe Corvette Racing Chevrolet 3m55.963s
41 GTE Pro R.Lietz, M.Christensen, J.Bergmeister Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 3m56.618s
42 GTE Am F.Perrodo, E.Collard, R.Aguas AF Corse Ferrari 3m56.723s
43 GTE Am V.Shaitar, A.Bertolini, A.Basov SMP Racing Ferrari 3m56.877s
44 GTE Pro P.Pilet, F.Makowiecki, W.Henzler Porsche Team Manthey Porsche 3m56.922s
45 GTE Pro O.Gavin, T.Milner, J.Taylor Corvette Racing Chevrolet 3m57.081s
46 GTE Am J.Bleekemolen, B.Keating, M.Miller Riley Motorsports-Ti Auto SRT/Dodge 3m57.836s
47 GTE Am P.Dempsey, P.Long, M.Seefried Dempsey Racing – Proton Porsche 3m57.842s
48 GTE Am C.Ried, K.Al Qubaisi, K.Bachler Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche 3m58.259s
49 GTE Am D.Cameron, M.Griffin, A.Mortimer AF Corse Ferrari 3m58.433s
50 GTE Am P.Mann, R.Giammaria, M.Cressoni AF Corse Ferrari 3m58.695s
51 GTE Am B.Sweedler, T.Bell, J.Segal Scuderia Corsa Ferrari 3m58.946s
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 3m59.612s
54 GTE Am R.Goethe, S.Hall, F.Castellacci Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 4m01.146s
55 GTE Am H.C.Chen, G.Vannelet, M.Parisy Team AAI Porsche 4m01.243s
56 GTE Am J.San Chen, A.Kapadia, X.Maassen Team AAI Porsche 4m01.270s

 

 

 

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