Porsche blocks out top three spots at Le Mans

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