Toyota remains top after truncated Le Mans qualifying two
Toyota remains fastest following a second qualifying session for the 2018 Le Mans 24 Hours that was brought to an early end after a crash for the LMP2 #47 car.
It was an incident-packed second qualifying, albeit with few lap time improvements against the times set during Wednesday evening’s two-hour session.
As a result, the #8 Toyota TS050 HYBRID remains on provisional pole, with Kazuki Nakajima’s 3m17.270s benchmark. Fernando Alonso posted the fastest time of the second session, with a 3m18.021s time set on his second lap. The #7 Toyota retains second place.
Mike Conway suffered two excursions in the #7 car during the session. He slid into the gravel at Dunlop in the opening minutes before later spinning on cold tyres at the same corner.
The Manor Ginetta G60s were among the few entries to improve their times during the session and the only cars to do so in LMP1.
Oliver Rowland set the pace in the #6 car before Alex Brundle brought the team to within two seconds of the next best in the LMP1 class ByKolles. The #6 is now ninth overall, ahead of all LMP2 entries.
The #5 car improved to 12th overall. Charlie Robertson had to be recovered from the gravel trap at Indianapolis at the mid-point of the session. The incident was covered by a slow zone.
The session was twice red flagged, with the second bringing a premature end to running.
Giorgio Sernagiotto crashed the #47 Certilar Villorba Corse entry at the first chicane on the Mulsanne straight. The car was heavily damaged after having hit the inside barrier before striking the outside Armco past the entrance to the corner.
With significant debris on track, the session was brought to an early close. Race control confirmed that the 30 minutes lost at the end of session two would be added to the start of Thursday evening’s final qualifying.
The final qualifying session will now be two and a half hours in length.
The first red flag of the session was deployed after 15 minutes. Sven Muller hit the barriers on the entry to Indianapolis in the #94 Porsche. The team missed the remainder of the session. It currently sits seventh in the GTE-Pro class.
The barrier repairs required as a result of this incident combined with the necessary retrieval of debris as a result of a spin at Tertre Rouge for the #67 Chip Ganassi Racing Ford.
Andy Priaulx dipped a wheel into the grass on the entry of the corner, spinning int the gravel trap and backing the car into the barriers.
Priaulx returned the car to the pits while the session was neutralised. The team completed repairs within 20 minutes to return to the circuit.