The Porsche Team have secured their 18th pole position in total for the brand at the Le Mans 24-Hours with Neel Jani setting the fastest qualifying time. Kiwi driver Brendon Hartley’s #1 Porsche will start second on the grid.
“It’s great to qualify with both cars on the front row again,” Hartley commented. “It’s a shame we didn’t get any more running. Neel and Timo had some compromised laps yesterday because of traffic and Audi didn’t put in a true qualifying effort. I feel sorry for the fans on the full grand stands and camping grounds, as they got wet but didn’t get to see a real shoot-out.”
Due to mostly wet track conditions in both qualifying sessions on Thursday, held from 7 pm to 9 pm and from 10 pm until midnight, there were no improvements in lap times for the top cars compared to the first qualifying session from Wednesday night.
The unbeaten best time for the field of 60 cars was achieved by Neel Jani on Wednesday. The Swiss had lapped the 13.629 kilometre long circuit in 3:19.733 minutes. In difficult track conditions he stayed above his qualifying record of 3:16.887 minutes that he achieved in 2015 and that now remains for the current track layout of the Circuit des 24 Heures. Timo Bernhard (DE) managed the second fastest lap on Wednesday. The reigning World Champion had managed a lap in 3:20.203 minutes. This means a front row lock out for the same Porsche works drivers as in Le Mans 2015. In the history of the race, that is being run in 2016 for the 84th time, it is the 15th time that Porsche has achieved a one-two result in qualifying.
Jani shares the 662 kW (900 PS) number 2 hybrid prototype with Romain Dumas (FR) and Marc Lieb (DE). Bernhard takes on what is known as the world’s hardest car race with partners Brendon Hartley (NZ) and Mark Webber (AU) in the number 1 sister car.
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