Le Mans 24 Hours: Jani takes provisional pole for Porsche

Jani stopped the clocks at 3m19.733 in a typically committed lap to go just under half-a-second quicker than teammate Timo Bernhard who registered a 3m20.203s in the #1 Porsche.

With Thursday's weather forecast indicating showers during the evening, Porsche lost no time in showing its qualifying pace in the Wednesday night session.

Toyota was just over a second adrift of the outright pace with the #6 TS 050 Hybrid recovering from a significant accident in practice to take third, with Stephane Sarrazin setting a 3m20.737s in the opening minutes to beat the #5 car by a second.

Audi had a session to forget, as both of its R18 cars were delayed in getting onto the track at the start of qualifying.

Things got little better as an attempted qualifying run by Benoit Treluyer in the #7 machine only brought a 3m22.670s lap, just over three seconds away from the provisional pole time of Jani.

The #8 Audi missed most of the first hour when repairs were completed after Lucas di Grassi’s moment at the first chicane in practice damaged aspects of the cars drivetrain.

Oliver Jarvis and then Loic Duval ventured out, but a 3m26.750 was initially the best it could achieve.

But when di Grassi was given new tyres, the Brazilian turned in a 3m22.466s lap to grab fifth place from the sister #7 Audi.

Matheo Tuscher, the youngest driver in the field, gave a fine account of himself as he set the best LMP1 privateer time on a 3m26.586s in the #13 Rebellion R-One-AER.

That was enough to beat the #12 car by eight tenths, with the #4 ByKolles CLM not setting a time after its practice engine fire.

G-Drive leads in LMP2

In the LMP2 division, the #26 G-Drive Racing Oreca led for all bar a few minutes of qualifying, as Rene Rast stamped his authority over the field.

The factory Audi driver beat his own initial fastest time set during his first stint at the wheel. The German peaked on a best of 3m36.605s to finish 0.570s ahead of the #35 Baxi DC Signatech Alpine driven by Nelson Panciatici.

The 2014 ELMS champion however was placed under investigation for the time which was set when Giancarlo Fisichella’s Ferrari was being recovered from a gravel trap.

The other Signatech Alpine driven by Nicolas Lapierre claimed third, ahead of the Manor entry of Roberto Merhi who set a late time to secure fourth.

The best Ligiers were the Michael Shank JS P2 in fifth and the #31 ESM entry in sixth, thanks to times by Laurens Vanthoor and Pipo Derani respectively.

Ford dominates GTE Pro

Gianmaria Bruni looked to have again claimed honours in GTE Pro with the new shape Ferrari 488, as the rapid Italian set a 3m51.568s.

But in the final 20 minutes Ryan Briscoe put together a committed 3m51.497s in the #69 Ford Chip Ganassi USA car to go 0.071s up on the #51 Ferrari.

However, Briscoe’s time was itself smashed on the very last lap by Dirk Muller, who took provisional pole for the #68 Ford on a 3m51.185s.

Harry Tincknell, driving the #67 Ford GT, earned the fourth fastest time, while Olivier Pla took fifth in the #66 car that was repaired after slight damage was inflicted by Billy Johnson in practice.

The Blue Oval garnered four of the top five positions on the provisional GTE Pro class grid as the top five read Ford-Ford-Ferrari-Ford-Ford.

The rest including Porsche, Corvette and Aston Martin were well detached from the pole battle.

Rob Bell again made the GTE Am class his own personal fiefdom as the British GT ace turned in a 3m56.827s lap in the Clearwater Racing Ferrari 458 Italia to put himself 0.7s clear of the #98 Aston Martin, which was driven to the fastest time by Pedro Lamy.

The only red flag of the two-hour session came when Fisichella spun his Risi Competizione Ferrari spectacularly at the Porsche Curves after 33 minutes.

The former Grand Prix racer had to be extricated from the gravel, but was still able to place seventh in the GTE Pro class behind the #71 AF Corse Ferrari.

There were several slow zone calls, including ones for the spun Beechdean Aston Martin of Andrew Howard, the Pegasus Morgan of Remy Striebig, Pu Jun Jin’s slightly damaged Eurasia Oreca, and the #63 Corvette of Ricky Taylor, who nudged the wall at Mulsanne Corner.

Qualifying times:

Pos.	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	2	Romain Dumas   Neel Jani   Marc Lieb	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	3'19.733
2	1	Mark Webber   Timo Bernhard   Brendon Hartley	Porsche 919 Hybrid	LMP1	3'20.203	0.470
3	6	Stéphane Sarrazin   Kamui Kobayashi   Mike Conway	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'20.737	1.004
4	5	Anthony Davidson   Kazuki Nakajima   Sébastien Buemi	Toyota TS050 Hybrid	LMP1	3'21.903	2.170
5	8	Lucas di Grassi   Loic Duval   Oliver Jarvis	Audi R18	LMP1	3'22.466	2.733
6	7	Andre Lotterer   Marcel Fassler   Benoit Tréluyer	Audi R18	LMP1	3'22.780	3.047
7	13	Alexandre Imperatori   Dominik Kraihamer   Matheo Tuscher	Rebellion R-One	LMP1	3'26.586	6.853
8	12	Nick Heidfeld   Nelson Piquet Jr.   Nicolas Prost	Rebellion R-One	LMP1	3'27.348	7.615
9	26	Will Stevens   Roman Rusinov   René Rast	Oreca 05	LMP2	3'36.605	16.872
10	35	Nelson Panciatici   Ho-Pin Tung   David Cheng	Alpine A460	LMP2	3'37.175	17.442
11	36	Nicolas Lapierre   Gustavo Menezes   Stéphane Richelmi	Alpine A460	LMP2	3'37.225	17.492
12	44	Roberto Merhi   Tor Graves   Matthew Rao	Oreca 05	LMP2	3'38.037	18.304
13	49	Laurens Vanthoor   John Pew   Oswaldo Negri Jr	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'38.837	19.104
14	31	Pipo Derani   Ryan Dalziel   Chris Cumming	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'39.366	19.633
15	46	Mathias Beche   Pierre Thiriet   Ryo Hirakawa	Oreca 05	LMP2	3'39.375	19.642
16	42	Nick Leventis   Danny Watts   Jonny Kane	Gibson 015S	LMP2	3'39.394	19.661
17	47	Matthew Howson   Richard Bradley   Tsugio Matsuda	Oreca 05	LMP2	3'39.436	19.703
18	23	Paul-Loup Chatin   Fabien Barthez   Timothé Buret	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'39.470	19.737
19	33	Tristan Gommendy   Pu Junjin   Nick de Bruijn	Oreca 05	LMP2	3'40.631	20.898
20	38	Giedo van der Garde   Simon Dolan   Jake Dennis	Gibson 015S	LMP2	3'40.685	20.952
21	43	Bruno Senna   Ricardo Gonzalez   Filipe Albuquerque	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'40.899	21.166
22	27	Maurizio Mediani   Nicolas Minassian   Mikhail Aleshin	BR01	LMP2	3'41.132	21.399
23	30	Scott Sharp   Ed Brown   Johannes van Overbeek	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'41.406	21.673
24	28	Leo Roussel   Inès Taittinger   Remy Striebig	Morgan	LMP2	3'42.049	22.316
25	37	Vitaly Petrov   Viktor Shaytar   Kirill Ladygin	BR01	LMP2	3'42.147	22.414
26	48	Jeroen Bleekemolen   Ben Keating   Marc Goossens	Oreca 03R	LMP2	3'43.508	23.775
27	34	Shinji Nakano   Nicolas Leutwiler   James Winslow	Oreca 03R	LMP2	3'43.590	23.857
28	40	Tracy Krohn   Nic Jonsson   Joao Barbosa	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'45.213	25.480
29	22	Erik Maris   Vincent Capillaire   Jonathan Coleman	Ligier JS P2	LMP2	3'48.585	28.852
30	68	Sébastien Bourdais   Joey Hand   Dirk Müller	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	3'51.185	31.452
31	69	Ryan Briscoe   Scott Dixon   Richard Westbrook	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	3'51.497	31.764
32	51	Gianmaria Bruni   James Calado   Alessandro Pier Guidi	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	3'51.568	31.835
33	67	Harry Tincknell   Andy Priaulx   Marino Franchitti	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	3'51.590	31.857
34	66	Stefan Mücke   Olivier Pla   Billy Johnson	Ford GT	LMGTE PRO	3'52.038	32.305
35	71	Sam Bird   Davide Rigon   Andrea Bertolini	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	3'52.508	32.775
36	82	Giancarlo Fisichella   Toni Vilander   Matteo Malucelli	Ferrari 488 GTE	LMGTE PRO	3'53.176	33.443
37	92	Frédéric Makowiecki   Earl Bamber   Jörg Bergmeister	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	3'54.918	35.185
38	95	Marco Sorensen   Nicki Thiim   Darren Turner	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE PRO	3'55.261	35.528
39	91	Nick Tandy   Patrick Pilet   Kevin Estre	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	3'55.332	35.599
40	97	Fernando Rees   Richie Stanaway   Jonathan Adam	Aston Martin Vantage	LMGTE PRO	3'55.380	35.647
41	77	Richard Lietz   Michael Christensen   Philipp Eng	Porsche 911 RSR (2016)	LMGTE PRO	3'55.426	35.693
42	64	Oliver Gavin   Tommy Milner   Jordan Taylor	Chevrolet Corvette C7R	LMGTE PRO	3'55.848	36.115
43	61	Rob Bell   Mok Weng Sun   Keita Sawa	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	3'56.827	37.094
44	98	Pedro Lamy   Paul Dalla Lana   Mathias Lauda	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	3'57.198	37.465
45	55	Duncan Cameron   Matt Griffin   Aaron Scott	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	3'57.596	37.863
46	83	François Perrodo   Emmanuel Collard   Rui Aguas	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	3'57.742	38.009
47	63	Jan Magnussen   Antonio Garcia   Ricky Taylor	Chevrolet Corvette C7R	LMGTE PRO	3'57.967	38.234
48	50	Pierre Ragues   Yutaka Yamagishi   Jean-Philippe Belloc	Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06	LMGTE AM	3'58.018	38.285
49	60	Christina Nielsen   Johnny Laursen   Mikkel Mac	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	3'58.760	39.027
50	78	Christian Ried   Wolf Henzler   Joel Camathias	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'59.245	39.512
51	88	David Heinemeier Hansson  Patrick Long   Khaled Al Qubaisi	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	3'59.861	40.128
52	62	William Sweedler   Townsend Bell   Jeff Segal	Ferrari F458 Italia	LMGTE AM	4'00.008	40.275
53	86	Michael Wainwright   Adam Carroll   Ben Barker	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'01.046	41.313
54	89	Marc Miller   Cooper MacNeil   Lehman Keen	Porsche 911 RSR	LMGTE AM	4'01.215	41.482
55	57	Mark Patterson   Johnny O'Connell   Oliver Bryant	Chevrolet Corvette C7-Z06	LMGTE AM	4'02.326	42.593
56	99	Gary Hirsch   Liam Griffin   Andrew Howard	Aston Martin Vantage V8	LMGTE AM	4'03.148	43.415