Final Qualifying Session - Toyota take pole at Le Mans

After all the excitement in the 2nd session the 3rd and final session started at 21:30 make up for the lost time in the previous session and will last for 2hrs 30min. So the start of the ‘in the dark bit’ wasn't quite as dark as it usually is! 

Nobody can recall such a strange couple of days of qualifying session and maybe questions will have to be asked about the masses of red flags and incidents  and of course the number of accidents at the Porsche Curves. We also heard that James Calado ( #71 Ferrari 458 Italia) was taken to hospital and will probably stay in overnight for observation after his accident. The team are asking if they can use a new chassis and Colado says he is fine  ‘just a bit of a bump’ .. It will all become clear tomorrow morning… hopefully! 

I should never have written that! We have just got a note from The ACO saying that AF Corse can replace the chassis assuming the scrutineers had checked  it out and that Pierre Kaffer will make up the team replacing Colado. We wish James a swift and full recovery.

Quick bit of ‘hot news’ … Lotus revealed their new LM P1 here today will debut at Austin USA in September. The new car  is called the P1/01 and shares nothing with last year’s T128 LM P2 car. This bit of lotus isn’t based in Norfolk.. it hails from The Czech Republic. 

Traditionally it seems to be late in this session when it is cooler when things begin to pan out. The quick drivers don’t seem in the least bit bothered that it is actually dark! After all they know the circuit pretty well by now ! 

As far as stoppages were concerned this was a better session that its predecessors, but that isn’t saying much really. All the teams were way behind with their planned schedules for qualifying and this meant that everybody was working to different agendas.  The big question that was teasing the Radio Le Mans Team and us was who is actually the quickest? Porsche started the session at the top of the timing sheets and as the ‘shoot out’ in the dark got closer they simply sat tight , no doubt playing mind games with Audi and Toyota. Everything was teed up nicely as Nakajima did a blindingly quick lap and looked set for pole. But Audi and Porsche were keeping their powder dry.

At last we were set for the shoot-out with 15 mins to go.. and it all went to bits! The #90 Ferrari 458 driven by Montecalvo went off causing damage to the surrounding countryside. It wasn’t a particularly big accident by current standards but it gave the Race Director the chance to try out using the new ‘Slow Zone’ procedure. This simply slows the cars down around an incident and saves deploying the safety car. This of course screwed up any chances anybody had to put in a series of pole position winning laps. The Shoot Out was on hold with 15 mins to go! The disaster was that it stayed in place until the chequered flag came out and that was that! A huge anti-climax if ever there was one! So the timing sheets stayed the same and none of the burning questions had been answered. How quick are the Porsches.. we  don’t know… are the Audi actually rather quicker than they were letting on .. we don’t know… are the Toyotas the fastest cars out there.. again we don’t know. All in all very frustrating.

So in the end the Toyota # 7 on pole from #14Porsche and #8 Toyota in LM P1, #12 fastest LM P1-L

In LM P2 #46 Ligier was fastest ahead of the  #38 Zytek and the  #35 Ligier

In GTE Pro #51 Ferrari was fastest ahead of the  #73 Corvette and #97 Aston Martin 

In GTE Am #81 Ferrari was fastest ahead of the  #98Aston Martin and #95 Aston Martin 

In the end the #0 ZEOD, whose progress we have been watching with interest  finished up a respectable 27th overall.

Tomorrow is a rest day and we will take a closer look at LMP2 and the GT’s. As always seem to happen we  got distracted by the potential  dramas in LMP1 and the astounding number of red flags, accidents and chaos.

Jock Simpson