Rebellion's Menezes "really surprised" to split Toyotas

The American driver posted a lap of 3m15.822s in Friday morning's 'Hyperpole' session to get within 0.555s of the pole time established by Toyota driver Kamui Kobayashi, also marking the fastest-ever time of the Circuit de la Sarthe for a non-hybrid car.

It came after the #1 Rebellion R-13 shared by Menezes, Bruno Senna and Norman Nato suffered a problem with its Gibson engine that forced the trio to sit out the second practice session on Thursday ahead of first qualifying.

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Having had limited running going into Hyperpole, Menezes admitted that he was surprised to post such a quick laptime, one that puts Rebellion ahead of the second Toyota on the grid.

"It was a dramatic start for us with the blown engine in FP2," Menezes told Motorsport.com. "I went into this morning feeling fairly ok, but not extremely in the rhythm to put together a lap.

"I did FP4, I did two timed laps, and I hadn’t driven new tyres, so I wasn’t 100 percent sure of what kind of pace gain we would have. But coming around Turn 1 and 2, my eyes opened. I thought, ‘oh my gosh, the car is incredible, it’s time to push a little bit’.

"Every time I came around a turn, the delta got faster. We got one perfectly clear lap and when I came out of the Ford chicane, I saw on the dash ‘3m15s’ and I thought, ‘oh my gosh, that must be one of the three or four fastest times around Le Mans'.

"It was an extremely clean lap and I don’t know how much I had left. It was pretty damn close to a perfect lap. The balance of the car was there today.

"We went into qualifying thinking a top four would be good, and we got on the front row. It really surprised everyone, including myself, so really happy with it."

#1 Rebellion Racing Rebellion R-13: Bruno Senna, Gustavo Menezes, Norman Nato

Photo by: Rainier Ehrhardt

Rebellion heads into Le Mans off the back of a disappointing showing in the previous FIA World Endurance Championship race at Spa in mixed conditions, with the Swiss team's CEO Calim Bouhadra admitting that a wet race at La Sarthe would be a "nightmare".

Menezes said he was optimistic that rain may not play too big a role in the race.

"The forecast has changed every day, but it seems to have got better," he said. "Before it was saying rain all night, now it’s looking like a little bit of rain in the afternoon and then clear for the rest of the race. We’ll have to see, but hopefully we can have a dry track and push. 

"I think it will be hard, we can’t be too confident, but I can tell you that even if we don’t have what it takes, we’ll be giving it everything to take home a win."