Toyota’s GR010 Hybrid has completed the first row of the grid for the 90th Central FIA World Endurance Championships, with Hartley at the top of the № 8, which he shares with Sebastian Buemi and Rio Hirakawa with a time of 3 m24. 408s.
This compares to the 3m23,900s with which Kobayashi took the pole for last year’s race.
Kobayashi sought to secure a fifth pole in six years aboard Toyota’s # 7, but overtook the 0.420s with his best lap of 3m24.828s after his best lap was scratched for breaking track restrictions.
Behind Toyota, the grandfather of the Alpine A480-Gibson LMP1 took third place in the grille thanks to Nicolas Lapierre’s 3m24.850s effort, which proved good enough to beat the two Glickenhaus 007 LMH.
Hartley took the lead after the initial 3m25.213s, but only a few minutes remained in the 30-minute shootout, which was surpassed by the 3m24.850s set by the Alpine Lapierre driver.
Kobayashi then returned to first place for Toyota with 3m24.585s, which was initially scratched for violating track restrictions, but was restored before being defeated by Hartley – only to be banned once and for all.
Glickenhaus driver Ryan Brisco briefly finished second with 3m25.841s at the wheel of the # 709 car, but was relegated to fourth place in the final by Olivier Pla, who managed only 3m26.359s in the # 708 example.
WRT, Corvette receive bars of class
The LMP2 pole went to the WRT as Robin Fries cleared more than a second from the opposition with a best time of 3m28.394s at the helm of # 31 Oreca 07-Gibson, which he shares with Sean Gelael and Rene Rast.
Norman Nato made one or two for the Belgian team in # 42 Realteam from a car entered the WRT, with his best time of 3m29.697s ahead of Philippe Albuquerque in the best car of United Autosports, car # 22.
Completing Hyperpole’s LMP2 order were Antonio Felix da Costa’s # 38 JOTA car, Luis Deletraz in Prema’s only bid, and Alex Lin in United’s # 23 car.
Corvette Racing secured the first-row block in the GTE Pro, as Nick Tandy put the only effort below 3m50s in the steering wheel class of the American brand’s # 64 C8.R.
The best of Tandy’s 3m49.985s compared to 3m50.177s, set by Antonio Garcia in sister # 63 car and 3m50.377s of the best Porsche 911 RSR-19s in third place, example # 91 of Frederic Makovetsky.
Porsche took second place on the grid, with Lawrence Vantor finishing fourth in the ’92 car ahead of two AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evos-driven Antonio Foucault, led by James Calado.
The pole in GTE Am went to AF Corse Ferrari driver Vincent Abril with just under two tenths of Mikel Jensen in the example of Kessel Racing.
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