Zoom Peugeot No.8 clinches the Le Mans pole!

Following the time lost during the penultimate session's final minutes after the red flags came out, Thursday evening's second and final session of Le Mans qualifying began earlier and lasted 2 hours and 15 minutes. Weather conditions were ideal all the way to midnight.

John Nielsen spun right from the start near the Dunlop sector, but he realigned his Team Essex Porsche RS Spyder without any trouble. Things went wrong again for the Oreca Team when its No.6 Courage went straight at Arnage and slowly returned to the garage with a damaged suspension.

At the end of the first quarter-hour, the Japanese No.11 Dome Judd S102 was the quickest of the petrol-powered cars, taking the honours away from the No.16 Pescarolo Judd. However, a few minutes later Stefan Mücke stormed his Charouz Racing Systems Lola Aston Martin ahead of the diesel-powered No.1 Audi R10!

Times were falling fast in the LMGT1 field as the No.63 Corvette C6.R completed a lap in 3:47.668, almost a second ahead of the No.64 sister car.

A change of leader occurred in the LMGT2 class when Wolf Henzler moved his Team Felbermayr-Proton Porsche 911 RSR into the top spot, under the four-minute barrier. The Performance-Matmut team wasted no time in responding when Patrick Long set an even faster lap of 3:58.152.

The Ferrari clan's Rob Bell tried his own best, achieving a third-fastest time of 3:59.820 aboard his No.96 Virgo Motorsport F430.

Taking advantage of the day's last sunrays, a few drivers went all-out for a final assault. Such was especially the case for two LMGT1-class Aston Martins, when the No.59 Team Modena car and the works No.007 edged closer to the leading official Corvette. Bouchut also joined the chase, placing his Larbre Competition Saleen S7R second-best behind the faster Corvette, 96 milliseconds near!

The two Epsilon Euskadis gained a few positions thanks to the efforts of Jean Marc Gounon and Adrian Vallès at the controls of the No.21 and No.20 cars respectively.

After returning to the stands at a slow pace, the Rollcenter team's No.18 Pescarolo Judd spent much time under the care of its mechanics before heading back onto the track as the session neared its end… and improved its best lap!

Once darkness had almost completely fallen, the hierarchy remained as it stood.

A few mostly inconsequential incidents affected a few contenders: the No. 41 Trading Performance Zytek went through the gravel trap at the Indianapolis corner, the No.90 Farnbacher Ferrari spun near Dunlop… and the No.72 Luc Alphand Aventures Corvette ran out of fuel.

Stéphane Sarrazin and the No.8 Peugeot 908 have rightly claimed pole position for the 76th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, signing a best time of 3:18.513 at the controls of the car he will share with Pedro Lamy and Alexander Wurz.

A second Peugeot, the No.9 car of the Montagny-Klien-Zonta crew, was second-fastest and will therefore share the front row. The third-quickest Peugeot No.7 of Gene-Minassian-Villeneuve completes the French team's top trio.

The fourth-placed Capello-Kristensen-McNish No.2 R10 TDI is the first Audi to appear on the grid, followed by the No.3 sister car of Luhr-Premat-Rockenfeller.

The No.10 Charouz Racing System Lola Aston Martin of Mücke-Enge-Charouz paid itself the luxury of taking sixth position on the grid ahead of the No.1 Audi of Biela-Pirro-Werner, and was also the fastest petrol car of the field.

The No.11 Dome Judd S102 of Ito-Tachikawa-Kataoka took eighth place, but a mechanical problem stopped the car on the side of the track 45 minutes before the session's end.

In LMP2, Le Mans rookie Jos Verstappen took pole for the Van Merksteijn Motorsport team, and another Porsche RS Spyder – the Team Essex No.31 car – came next in second place ahead of the No. 32 Barazi Epsilon Zytek.

The No.63 Corvette Racing C6.R will lead the LMGT1 category, barely ahead of the No.50 Larbre Competition Saleen S7R. The second yellow works Corvette and the two Gulf Aston Martins completed the top five.

The advantage went to Porsche models in the LMGT2 class, as the No.76 Team Performance-Matmut car completed a better fastest lap than the No.77 Team Felbermayr-Proton. The No.96 Virgo Motorsport Ferrari reached third position.

This year's 24 Hours of Le Mans race, which promises to be high on pressure and hard on the competitors, will begin Saturday at 3pm local time.

Daniel BASTIEN
© CAPSIS International