LM24: Seven cars put to back of Le Mans grid

The ByKolles Racing Team privateer LMP1 entry is one of seven cars sent to the back of the grid for the Le Mans 24 Hours.

A fire in the CLM-AER P1/01 during practice on Wednesday meant the car missed the dry opening night qualifying session.

Pierre Kaffer did get some dry running on Thursday to initially qualify the car ninth but team-mate Simon Trummer failed to set a representative lap time. His failure to comply with the minimum qualifying time, as well as not completing the necessary five laps at night, means that car will now start 54th.

Oliver Webb, the third driver in that car who also failed to run in the dry in qualifying but completed a satisfactory laptime in practice, criticised the decision.

"They're asking us to go 13s quicker than any of the LMP1 hybrid factory cars in the wet just to qualify," he said. "It's dangerous starting from the back, especially if it's a wet start."

Maurizio Mediani also failed to complete enough night laps in the #27 SMP Racing BRE-Nissan BR-01, dropping that car to 55th, as did Antonio Garcia in the #63 Chevrolet Corvette C7.R that will now line up 60th and last.

The places between those two cars on the grid will be filled by four LMP2 entries whose drivers failed to comply with the minimum qualifying time.

Remi Striebig (#28 Pegasus Racing Morgan), Ed Brown (#30 Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier), Erik Maris (#22 SO24! Lombard Ligier) and Tracy Krohn (#40 Krohn Ligier) were their cars' offending drivers.

The seven drivers were in breach of article 10.4.1 D of the sporting regulations, and will not be allowed to start their respective cars, as per article 10.4.2.8 B.

Originally on Autosport.com