How Lynn gave Cadillac a night to remember at Le Mans

It had been on his mind for a whole year. After narrowly missing out on pole to a last-gasp stunner from Kevin Estre in Hyperpole last June, Alex Lynn delivered the goods on Thursday night at La Sarthe, leading a stunning front-row lockout for Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA for the biggest race of the year.

“I’d waited 12 months to try this again,” Alex Lynn told reporters amid celebrations in the pit box after setting his 3m23.166s flyer in the No. 12 Cadillac.

“Last year, I was a tenth off, and I felt like I was 100 miles away. I was determined to have that feeling Kevin had tonight. Pole at Le Mans is always special; it’s the race of the year. It doesn’t mean anything for the race, but it means something to pride, and it’s what we go racing for.”

The result was truly historic, beyond simply snapping Ferrari’s pole streak this season in the WEC, which dated back to the season-opener at Qatar.

For Cadillac, it’s a first-ever Le Mans pole. It has also become the first American brand to clinch the best spot on the grid for the race since Ford back in 1967.

JOTA, meanwhile, secured its first WEC pole in Hypercar and its first pole as a Cadillac factory team. And Lynn became the first British driver to claim overall pole for the French classic since Johnny Herbert in 2004.

It was tough to nail the lap in the new Hyperpole format, in which two drivers from each car take part in a shootout session each, but the British ace persevered.

“You jump in cold at 9:45 pm, medium tires, push, push, push. Coming in straight away and delivering isn’t easy," he explained. "That’s what makes the new format interesting; a new driver jumps in cold. It’s tricky.”

Before setting his ultimate best, he struggled on his second push lap. “I lost a bit of time in Indianapolis, we went aggressive on diff settings, so the next lap I was adjusting everything on the fly,” he said.

In the end, that hiccup didn’t matter, as his third tour, which he felt wasn't perfect, was good enough to pip his teammate Earl Bamber in the sister No. 38 V-Series.R to P1. Then came the wait for final confirmation from the team after all the other drivers completed their final laps.

“It was the longest 30 seconds ever,” he added.

Back in the garage, it was equally tense. Keely Bosn, GM’s new sports car racing program manager for this year, was left speechless after seeing Sam Hignett and David Clark’s team at its best.

“I have almost no emotion right now, because I’m overwhelmed by how incredible the team has been,” she told RACER. “We’ve spent the last six months working across all four teams trying to find learning opportunities. That shows up big today on how much we’ve collaborated this week.”

Ahead of Hyperpole, she said everyone at Cadillac was “high on confidence” that pole could be 'on', but it didn’t make it any less agonizing to watch the final shootout play out.

“Coming out of the IMSA race at Detroit, we’ve had so much momentum leading into this one. We showed up this week, we showed up for Hyperpole, and now we want to show up for the race itself,” Bosn said. “We all held our breath as we waited to see who came out on top.”

Can General Motors’ flagship sportscar program pull it off come Sunday afternoon? It will take an almighty effort to win in this 21-car field, which is bursting at the seams with factory cars.

“We have four strong Cadillacs,” Bosn said. “Now we need to work on the set-up – the race looks like it will be cooler. But feel good going into it.”

The first major Le Mans headline has been written. Now we wait for the second...