LM24: Toyota moves to the front in final Le Mans qualifying

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Confirming the widely held expectation ahead of the 2014 24 Hours of Le Mans that the Toyotas held the upper hand from an outright pace point of view, the No. 7 Toyota Racing entry posted a 3:21.789 lap to take pole position for the race start on Saturday.

The machine, which is piloted by Alex Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin, and Kazuki Nakajima, bested the 2013 pole time of 3:22.349, an impressive achievement considering that the LM P1-H machines are using roughly 25% less fuel than last year.

Using a small V4, single-turbocharger along with Hybrid power to push the Porsche 919 forward, the No. 14 Porsche ensured a place on the start photo with a fast time of 3:22.146 on Thursday after the sister No. 20 Porsche had paced the first qualifying session on Wednesday.

In the LM P2 class, the new Ligier JS P2 made an impressive first qualifying foray at Le Mans as the No. 46 Thiriet by TDS Racing machine of Pierre Thiriet, Ludovic Badey, and Tristan Gommendy had a 3:37.609 lap to lock in the first spot on the LM P2 grid. Simon Dolan, Harry Tincknell, and last-minute call-up Oliver Turvey are set for a front row start with the No. 38 Jota Sport Zytek-Nissan combination good for a 3:37.674 and second in the order. Another Ligier, the No. 35 G-Drive Racing by Oak Racing was third fastest as the new closed-coupe P2 entry was strong in qualifying.

AF Corse pilots Fisichella, Vilander, and Bruni each have at least one victory apiece in this race (Bruni has two), and the trio got a good start toward another big win with a pole position in GTE-Pro in the Ferrari 458 Itlalia with a fast lap time of 3:53.700. It is a varied look at the sharp end, as the Corvette Racing No. 73 going to second with a 3:54.777 lap and the No. 97 Aston Martin third.

2013 GP2 vice-champion Sam Bird locked a GTE-Am pole position at Le Mans on to his resume with a 3:54.665 flyer in the No. 81 AF Corse machine, with Aston Martin taking second and third on the grid after showing more speed so far this weekend than had been anticipated.

After the Wednesday practice and qualifying sessions featured extensive and frequent red flags, the Thursday first qualifying continued that trend, with several cars falling afoul of incidents during the final session, which was started early to accommodate for the lack of time during the earlier sessions.

One team that was happy to get on track was the Nissan ZEOD squad, which had suffered a one-two punch on Wednesday, fixing a transmission issue in time to get back out on track but only to suffer a second set back that saw the car return to Garage 65 for additional attention.

The experimental car, which had hoped to practice an all-electric lap in the Wednesday practice session was back on three-cylinder song on Thursday. The car posted a fast time of 3:50.185 seconds to take 27th on the overall order. The car runs as the single car in its class, and the time puts it almost exactly between the last of the LM P2 entries and the top of the GTE cars. The lap for the car is surely a dynamic one, with straightline speed (reported to be over 300kph) enhanced by the DRS and low drag of the car, while the innovative aero should make it capable in the high-speed corners as well.

The No. 99 GTE-Pro Aston Martin that was crashed yesterday with Fernando Rees on board has been withdrawn from the race due to the damage being so extensive.

There are some other cars – the Weathertech Porsche that was reported to suffer chassis damage after an accident with American Brett Curtis driving, and the No. 71 Ferrari that had a crash so severe that it necessitated a new driver (Pierre Kaffer in for James Calado), and the No. 90 8Star effort, that are all facing the need to either find a replacement, or some very big work from the crews to be ready to go on Saturday a.m. after a range of crashes in what was generally not a tidy set of sessions over the past two days.

It's a quiet but busy day and a half to follow now, with the "longest day" set to start on Saturday morning with the 9:00 a.m. warm-up.