TOYOTA GAZOO Racing will start the 84th Le Mans 24 Hours from the second row of the grid after rain washed out most of the final qualifying sessions at the Circuit de la Sarthe.
The #6 TS050 HYBRID of Stéphane Sarrazin, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi will start TOYOTA’s 18th Le Mans from third place, alongside the #5 of Anthony Davidson, Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima which will line up fourth.
The starting grid at Le Mans is decided by the best single lap time from any of the three qualifying sessions, one of which took place on Wednesday with the other two on Thursday.
Wednesday’s lap times put the two TS050 HYBRIDs in provisional third and fourth, but improving those times was not top of the agenda in the final two sessions; instead, the priority was on optimising the race set-up.
Both cars made the most of 30 minutes of dry running at the start of second qualifying before the heavy rain arrived as forecast. Despite a wet track, the race preparation continued, with long stints for both cars on wet tyres.
Even heavier rain at the beginning of second qualifying limited running and caused a lengthy red flag period. When the session resumed with 45 minutes remaining, the drivers gained experience of the Michelin wet tyres on a very wet track at night.
Those conditions prevented any late change of position. TOYOTA expresses its congratulations to the Porsche #2 car, which will start the 2016 Le Mans 24 Hours from pole position.
With comprehensive preparations from all areas of the team now completed, TOYOTA is looking forward to a competitive race when the French Tricolore waves to signal the start at 15.00 local time on Saturday.
Comments