Dries Vanthoor takes Le Mans 24 Hours pole for BMW after penalty for Aitken

Jack Aitken and Cadillac appeared to have won the pole position for the 94th 24 Hours of Le Mans – but a foul committed before the start of the climactic Hyperpole session has handed the pole position to Dries Vanthoor and the No. 15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8.

Vanthoor was notified he'd won pole position in parc ferme after initially qualifying second behind the No.38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R of Aitken, whose best lap of 3m22.559s was deleted after his fastest lap from the session was deleted – not for a track limits infringement, but for jumping to the front of the queue to exit pit lane, ahead of the two Team WRT BMWs, before the start, an offense which was under investigation during Hyperpole 2. Specifically, the infringement was for going from the working side of pit lane into the fast lane before instructed.

"I’m super happy to be on pole in Le Mans! This is such a great event, and now being on pole here and giving everyone in the team what they deserve, is awesome," Vanthoor said. "At the same time our goal is to win the race, so we need to keep it clean over 24 hours to be right there on Sunday.“

Only seconds after learning of the change, Team WRT co-owner and CEO Vincent Vosse reacted, “It’s great to be, then, P1 and P4! We are very happy for the team, it’s a great achievement from BMW to provide us with a car. Thanks to Andreas (Roos, Head of BMW M Motorsport) – he did everything. I mean, it doesn’t mean a lot for the race, but it’s a good start!”

It is BMW's first overall pole position at the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the first for Vanthoor.

The tweaked Hyperpole format for 2026 began with the first stage; 20 minutes, 15 cars, trying to make the top 10 to advance to the second stage. Each session would feature a different driver, and not the driver that participated in last night’s first qualifying session.

With a heroic final lap, Alpine Endurance Team’s Charles Milesi went from the drop zone to P1 in Hyperpole 1, setting a 3m23.018s to advance, and go 0.073s quicker than Earl Bamber in the No.38 JOTA Cadillac.

Mathys Jaubert was the surprise of the session as the young Frenchman went third fastest in the No.17 Genesis GMR-001, only a tenth behind Milesi’s benchmark!

Milesi’s monster lap bumped Ross Gunn and the No. 007 Aston Martin Valkyrie out of a place in Hyperpole 2 by only 0.013s, while Antonio Fuoco, once dropped, could not put the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari back in again and missed the cut with him.

Jules Gounon in the No.36 Alpine was bumped out, as were the two Toyota Racing TR010 Hybrids of Kamui Kobayashi (No.7) and Ryo Hirakawa (No.8) whose cars will start 14th and 15th. It was a tough cut for the five cars and drivers who missed out – less than 1.6 seconds covered all 15 cars.

That then set up Hyperpole 2, where the remaining 10 cars would swap drivers, and had only 15 minutes to set their fastest lap as the sun went down over La Sarthe. Vanthoor in the No. 15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 set an imposing benchmark with his first flying lap of 3m22.745s. It would take some beating and on his final flying lap, Vanthoor went even quicker, setting a 3m22.564s to take provisional pole as the checkered flag fell.

But with a monster third sector, Aitken surged through to provisional P1, setting what could have been the pole-winning lap of 3:22.559s. Aitken was initially awarded a medal for his pole position, but it will now be handed to Vanthoor, while Aitken was shuffled down to 10th.

However, Will Stevens was able to put the other JOTA Cadillac, the No. 12 V-Series.R, on the front row – his 3m23.078s puts him second on the grid. António Félix da Costa followed up his co-driver Milesi’s Hyperpole 1 effort by putting the No. 35 Alpine A424 third on the grid, followed by Robin Frijns in the No.20 WRT BMW in fourth.

Filipe Albuquerque was a solid fifth in the No. 101 WTR Cadillac – doing his time on medium compound tires while the other drivers did theirs on softs.

Paul-Loup Chatin got the No. 19 Genesis Magma Racing GMR-001 up to sixth on the grid, Roman de Angelis settled into seventh in the No. 009 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie, and James Calado was eighth in the No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P. André Lotterer qualified ninth in the No. 17 Genesis, which will start ahead of the No. 38 JOTA Cadillac of Aitken.

Second became first for Team IDEC Sport. James Moy Photography/Getty Images

Esteban Masson set the fastest time in LMP2 – but due to an outstanding penalty from yesterday’s qualifying, it’ll be the No. 28 IDEC Sport ORECA 07-Gibson which will start up front in LMP2 on Saturday.

CrowdStrike Racing by APR’s Laurin Heinrich and Forestier Racing by Panis’ Oliver Gray traded the top times in LMP2 during Hyperpole 1, only to be usurped by reigning LMP2 race winner Tom Dillmann at Inter Europol Competition. The Frenchman put the No. 43 ORECA on the top of the leaderboard with a 3m33.762s.

Meanwhile, both United Autosports cars missed the cut for Q2; Grégoire Saucy in the No. 22 missed out on a place in Hyperpole 2 by nearly 0.4s, ahead of the No. 222 (Oliver Jarvis); also missing out was the No. 26 Vector Sport (Vladislav Lomko), the No. 37 CLX Motorsport (Theodor Jensen), and No. 9 Proton Competition (Kakunoshin Ohta) cars.

Jensen’s progress was stunted by a spin down at the second Mulsanne Chicane, while Ohta was unable to set a representative lap.

Job van Uitert for IDEC Sport looked like the early favorite to take the top time in Hyperpole 2, setting a 3m33.689s as the benchmark. But then the young Frenchman Masson was rapid in the No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis ORECA, taking provisional pole with a 3m33.107, then improving on his last lap to a 3m32.855s.

However, the No. 29 Forestier/Panis car will have to drop to second on the grid for tomorrow’s race, after co-driver Louis Rousset was handed a one-place grid drop penalty for impeding an LMGT3 car during yesterday’s time trial. That promoted the No. 28 IDEC Sport ORECA to pole position, the team’s second LMP2 pole in the last three years. Van Uitert’s best lap would be a 3m33.242s.

The No. 24 Nielsen Racing car qualified third thanks to a great run from F1 alumnus Jack Doohan, and Nick Yelloly put last year’s winning No. 43 Inter Europol Competition ORECA fourth on the grid.

“It was an incredible job to get in this position, getting the car into Hyperpole 2 was already an achievement. The session was messier than I’d like but to be up at the pointy end in P3 is great. Our focus now shifts to the 24 Hours ahead,” Doohan said.

Alex Quinn qualified fifth in the leading LMP2 Pro/Am entry, the No. 4 CrowdStrike Racing by APR ORECA.

Rounding out the top 10 were the No. 30 Duqueine Team (Julien Andlauer), No. 14 TDS Racing (Kévin Estre), No. 99 AO by TF (Dane Cameron), No. 183 AF Corse (Matthieu Vaxivière), and No. 343 Inter Europol (Reshad de Gerus) cars.

Mattia Drudi continued Aston Martin's pole streak at Le Mans. Jakob Ebrey/Getty Images

In LMGT3, Mattia Drudi put the No. 27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 on pole position for the second year in a row.

Heart of Racing Team’s No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage led both phases of Hyperpole, in fact; Zacharie Robichon finished Hyperpole 1 on top with a 3m53.177s, 0.2s clear of Augusto Farfus in the No. 32 Team WRT BMW, and Ayhancan Güven in the No. 91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche not far behind in third.

Formula 1 alumnus Logan Sargeant was bumped out of a Hyperpole 2 Place at the checkered flag, by his Proton Competition Ford teammate Sebastian Priaulx, who fought his way to safety on the final lap.

Sargeant in the No. 88 Proton Ford joined the No. 62 (Julian Hanses) and No. 61 (Rui Andrade) Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMGs, the No. 54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari (Francesco Castellacci), and last year’s winning entry, the No. 92 The Bend Manthey Porsche (Riccardo Pera) as the other cars missing out on a chance to fight for pole.

Once Hyperpole 2 kicked off, the Italian dynamo Drudi was only impeded when his first flying lap of 3m52.410s was struck from the board due to a track limits infringement. But he pulled out another rapid lap in the No. 27 Aston Martin, not quite as fast, but no other driver would get within a second of the 3m52.433 pole time from Drudi.

"It was a good lap!" Drudi told RACER. "It was good that I could repeat it, because my first lap was deleted. I was also lucky on my second because I got a tow from the Ford. The car is amazing though. We've worked hard on race pace, because we knew over one lap the car was quick."

Alessio Rovera came closest, putting the No. 21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari second on the grid with a 3m53.412s. Behind him were the two Akkodis ASP Lexus, the No. 87 of José Maria Lopez, and the No. 78 of Jack Hawksworth, whose session was delayed a bit due to an issue with the driver-side door. The two Team WRT BMWs qualified fifth and sixth with their Silver-graded drivers, Sean Gelael in the No. 32 of ahead of Parker Thompson in the No. 69.

Kessel Racing’s No. 74 Ferrari was the bestow the wild card LMGT3s in seventh thanks to Dennis Marschall, followed by the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin (Jonny Adam), the No. 91 Manthey Porsche (Güven), and the No. 77 Proton Competition Ford (Ben Tuck).

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