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WEC 24 Hours of Le Mans

Le Mans 24 Hours – First Qualifying

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Chequered Flag
See you tomorrow. Bon nuit!

Thanks for your company.

We're off to trawl the paddock and see what news we can sniff out for you.

Come rain or shine, Motorsport.com will be here to guide you through.

So two hours of qualifying in the book, and four more hours to go on Thursday.

However, the doom mongers would have you believe it's going to rain, so has the grid already been set?

At least Ferrari can salvage a degree of pride by topping GTE-Am thanks to Rob Bell's sterling effort in the Clearwater car.

The #98 Aston Martin was second with Pedro Lamy, ahead of Matt Griffin in the #55 AF Corse Ferrari.

Leading GTE Pro times:

1) #68 Ford 3m51.185s
2) #69 Ford +0.312s
3) #51 Ferrari +0.383s
4) #67 Ford +0.405s
5) #66 Ford +0.853s
6) #71 Ferrari +1.323s
Ferrari and its 488 put up a brave fight, with third for the #51 car all of a sudden not looking too bad.

As for Porsche, Aston Martin and Corvette? They were nowhere.
GTE Pro, as it turned out, was all about one manufacturer - Ford.

No doubt the sudden turn of pace the quartet of GTs showed will be a big talking point in the coming days and weeks.

Leading LMP2 times:

1) #26 Oreca 3m36.605s
2) #35 Alpine +0.570s
3) #36 Alpine +0.620s
4) #44 Oreca +1.432s
5) #49 Ligier +2.232s
6) #31 Ligier +2.761s
Manor, Shank and ESM were next up – and we can expect a battle royal between that little lot.
G-Drive ruled the roost in LMP2 with Rene Rast leading the way by half a second over the Baxi DC Alpine and the Signatech version.

Final LMP1 times:

1) #2 Porsche 3m19.733s
2) #1 Porsche +0.470s
3) #6 Toyota +1.004s
4) #5 Toyota +2.170s
5) #8 Audi +2.733s
6) #7 Audi +3.047s
7) #13 Rebellion +6.853s
8) #12 Rebellion +7.615s
Rebellion is best of the rest, as you'd expect, ahead of the LMP2 cars.
Audi was fifth and sixth, not helped by that difficult practice session.
Toyota was third and fourth, the #6 car 1s off the pace and the #5 2s away.
At the top of the pile, Porsche really dominated that session and looks set for another pole this year from Jani. It seems like a long time ago now (well, it is) but his 3m19.733s topped the session from the #1 Porsche's 3m20.203s.
Yellow Flag
The AAI Corvette has stopped out on track at the Porsche Curves.
To confirm, that's Fords in one and two, four and five in GTE Pro. Ominous stuff.
The German's last time of the night is a 3m51.185s, good enough to edge Briscoe's earlier effort by some four tenths. Wow!
Speaking of US LMP2 teams, ESM's #31 car rises to sixth in class.
Stopwatch
Dirk Muller now fastest in GTE Pro!
Stopwatch
Laurens Vanthoor squeaks in a 3m38.837s in the Shank-run Ligier. Fifth in LMP2 will do very nicely for the US-based team.
That leaves the #4 CLM as the only car to not set a time (or indeed a lap) all session.
Good news for fans of the #22 So24 Ligier - it's now set a time courtesy of Jonathan Coleman, albeit the slowest in class.
Chequered Flag
And that's a wrap for the first qualifying session.
Di Grassi's 3m22.466s is 2.733s off the pace.
Stopwatch
Di Grassi sneaks in a last-gasp improvement, taking the #8 above the #7 car into fifth.
The Corvettes are now officially second to last and last in GTE Pro. There will be some glum faces down in the Pratt & Miller garage tonight.
Stopwatch
The #44 Manor trims its time again, down to a 3m38.037s to run fourth in LMP2.
Dirk Muller now has the #68 Ford up to fourth in class, ahead of the #66 car currently being driven by Pla.
Small change further down in GTE Pro, as Marco Sorensen gets the best of the Aston Martins, the #95, up to ninth.
That's four Ford GTs in the top five of GTE-Pro now, the #51 Ferrari the only interloper.

No doubt the words "sand" and "bagging" will be coming up in many paddock conversations tonight...
A 3m22s from Webber. Still 2s off that car's ultimate pace so far.
Stopwatch
Ford on the move again - the #68 has got itself into gear and moved up to fifth in the hands of Dirk Muller.
Lapierre improves to 3m37.225s to run P3 in LMP2 in the Signatech Alpine.
Just too eager on the power coming out of the Ford chicane, was the Frenchman. He avoids the barriers and gets on his merry way.
Crash
Spin for the #92 Porsche of Frederic Makowiecki.
The #6 Toyota and #5 sister car are 1s and 2s off the pace respectively.
The Audis are now within 0.04s of each other. But, more importantly, 3s off the pace of the leading Porsche.
Stopwatch
Di Grassi improves, but not by enough to move up a place. The #8 Audi stays sixth, now on 3m22.823s.
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