Qualifying of ELMS teams at the 24 Hours of Le Mans

ELMS teams have been impressive on track

Jota Sport – Oliver Turvey, the Vodafone McLaren-Mercedes Formula 1 Test Driver, who shares the team's #38 Zytek-Nissan with Simon Dolan and Lucas Luhr, made the most of the dry conditions late in the final session to initially vault up to second place in the ultra-competitive LMP2 category, before a late improvement elsewhere relegated the British squad to a still-impressive third. Oliver Turvey: “The conditions have been tricky and we'd not had a lot of track time before the last 30 minutes of qualifying. However, I'm pleased to be third even if pole position was perhaps a possibility on a fresh tyre run. But we've focused on the race, which ultimately is the most important thing. This is my first Le Mans and driving at night has been the biggest surprise, but also very special.” Full team here 

4th LMP2 time in qualification for Morand Racing - Franck Mailleux, Olivier Lombard and Natacha Gachnang will start the iconic Le Mans 24 Hours on the 6th row of the starting grid this Saturday at the La Sarthe circuit. The Franco-Swiss trio recorded a lap time of 3'40''741 granting them second place in the LM P2 category during the first qualification session which took place on Wednesday night between 10 pm and midnight.  Unfavourable weather conditions meant the track was either wet at its best, or even soaking wet. Full team release here

Fourth LMP2 in last night's session, the ORECA03-Nissan n°48 of Murphy Prototype will start from 7th position tomorrow. Greg Murphy Team Principal (IRL) “We were pretty disappointed to be honest, every time we went for a lap we got traffic, we got red flags… I'm sure it's a common story up and down the pitlane, but yeah, we really struggled. We had a lot more pace in the car, than we showed today. But seventh position, I think Starworks when they won it last year started in 11th, so we're reasonable happy, 24 hours to go, we're here to fight and we're here to win so I think we have some good speed in the car. We had a problem with all the red flags and stuff, we didn't get a rhythm, and I feel a little bit for Karun he had very little running, but he's such a good driver it's not going to be a problem.” Full team release here

At Signatech Alpine, the dreaded rain was largely conspicuous by its absence, but the few short showers that did materialize were sufficient to leave the track wet for quite some time – to the extent that right up until the final hour of qualifying, yesterday's benchmarks remained unbeaten.  The closing minutes, however, provided all crews with the opportunity to chase a quicker lap time as the clock ticked down towards midnight. At the wheel of the N°36 Alpine A450, Nelson Panciatici achieved a best effort of 3m41.654s to place the car eighth amongst the LMP2 runners. “We have made a lot of progress in terms of the car's performance,” explains Signatech Alpine team principal Philippe Sinault. “That is a great source of satisfaction. Nelson Panciatici did an excellent job, even if a combination of traffic and yellow flags prevented him from featuring amongst the class's front-runners. We're not going to look at the lap times anymore, though; now is the moment to shift our attentions to the big clock!” Full team release here

 After the significant accident of Pierre Thiriet at the first qualifying session, the Thiriet by TDS Racing team has had a lot of hard work to do to rebuild the car. As the team announced on their Facebook page: "After we received the new bodywork yesterday at 7:00 pm, the mechanics have worked like crazy to rebuild the car. Now we are almost ready to do the warm-up tomorrow morning at 9:00 am. Our three drivers are really impatient to start the race tomorrow at 3:00pm."

In LMGTE Pro, the one and only ELMS Team is JMW Motorsport with the Ferrari 458 Italia n°66. They got to set their time in the last minutes of the third session and will start the race from 12th in LMGTE Pro.

The first ELMS team in LMGTE Am did its best lap in the first qualifying session on Wednesday. Wolf Henzler drove the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR n°67 of IMSA Performance Matmut to 5th place in class. It will be followed by another Porsche 911 GT3 RSR, the n°75 of Prospeed Competition. Emmanuel Collard (FRA – Driver - Porsche 911 GT3 RSR #75 – LM GTE AM) “I'm pleased with the result, especially seeing that I was able to optimise the car's handling at the last moment. We can now use the car's handling during my fast laps as the basis to improve the set-up for the race, in as much that it might be necessary.” Full team release here. 

N°77 Porsche 911 GT3 RSR of Dempsey Del Piero -Proton is 7th in LMGTE Am and Ferrari 458 Italia n°55 from AF Corse is 10th in class.