Le Mans: Buemi and Jani in front
OPTIMUM STARTING POSITION Sébastien Buemi's Toyota will start the 24 Hours of Le Mans from pole position on Saturday. The Rebellion of Neel Jani will be right behind. In the GT class, Marcel Fässler and Corvette can only hope for a miracle. As expected, the two Toyota TS050 Hybrids are on the front row of the grid. In qualifying from [...]
As expected, the two Toyota TS050 Hybrids are on the front row of the grid. In qualifying on Thursday evening, Kazuki Nakajima qualified the car, which he shares with Sébastien Buemi and Fernando Alonso, for pole position. With a time of 3'15.377, he missed last year's record time set by Kamui Kobayashi, who was "only" second fastest this time, by one second.
As the only works team, Toyota is the absolute favorite. Nevertheless, the first victory for the Japanese brand and ideally also for the Vaud-based team is not so easy to dust off.
Sébastien Buemi: "In terms of speed, we are superior. However, this has the disadvantage that we now have to think much more about how we behave when overtaking in traffic. With Audi and Porsche as opponents, it was clear - always at full throttle. That made you concentrate in a completely different way. Now you're constantly thinking about other things and listening to the car all the time."
So what can go wrong? What does he fear most?
Sébastien Buemi: "A mistake! Due to a lack of equal opponents, Toyota was able to spend more time on reliability than on developing performance. We ran through all the scenarios of how we could bring the car back to the pits in an emergency. But you can never rule out a mistake by a driver or mechanic, or a defect that you don't expect."
Neel Jani and Rebellion in lurking position
The two new Rebellion R13s with naturally aspirated Gibson V8 engines are the fastest cars of the five LMP1 private teams to date. They have never been so fast at Le Mans.
The car with Neel Jani, André Lotterer and Bruno Senna starts the race from third position. The even better time set by the car of Mathias Beche, Thomas Laurent and Gustavo Menezes was subsequently deleted, but only cost the trio two places on the grid.
How does the 2016 winner with Porsche see his chances?
Neel Jani: "Under normal circumstances, we have no chance of winning. That's why third place overall as the best private team is our realistic goal. The regulations have brought us closer to Toyota, but we are not allowed to be faster. Our strategy is that of a real endurance race: drive through without making any mistakes, not get involved in any accidents and hope that the Toyotas get into some kind of trouble. Then we'll be right on their heels. With Porsche, on the other hand, it was a sprint race at full throttle right from the start."
The LMP2 cars with Jonathan Hirschi (Oreca from Graff Racing) and Hugo de Sadeleer (Ligier from United Autosports) will start from positions 7 and 14 in their 20-car class.
Marcel Fässler's third start with Corvette Racing
The starting position is difficult for Corvette Racing, for whom Marcel Fässler will be competing in the number 64 car for the third time at Le Mans. His C7.R is only 14th in the GT Pro class, which is made up of 17 works cars from Aston Martin, BMW, Chevrolet, Ferrari, Ford and Porsche.
Two of the four 911 RSRs of the Porsche GT Team form the front row of the grid. Nevertheless, the prospect of a first GT podium for the three-time overall winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans with Audi is still there.
Marcel Fässler: "We've never been so fast with the Corvette here at Le Mans, which shows that we've done a good job in development. We can't match the best times of the front runners in qualifying. It's always different in the race, so we hope that we can keep up over the distance. My job is simply to drive as fast as I can."
History will be made at the weekend
The start of the 86th 24 Hours of Le Mans will take place on Saturday at 3 pm. The entire race will be broadcast live by Eurosport.
In any case, history will be made when a new winner crosses the famous finish line at 3 pm on Sunday. Toyota? With Alonso and Buemi? Rebellion? Another private team? Even an LMP2 team? Anything is possible, anyone would be a first-time winner of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The endurance classic counts as the second round of the year-round world championship, which will come to an end in a year's time with the second marathon in Le Mans.
So if Sébastien Buemi's first victory doesn't work out, he will have just as good a chance again in 2019.
