Motorsport: Will pole position bring luck this time?
Neel Jani was no longer displaced from pole position in the second practice session for the 24 Hours of Le Mans due to the rainy weather. Now the driver from Biel hopes that it will bring him the necessary luck in the race. Behind him, Sébastien Buemi (Toyota) and Marcel Fässler (Audi) are waiting for their chance. After 35 minutes, the time chase in the [...]
After 35 minutes, the time chase in qualifying on Thursday evening was decided. First, the storm clouds that had been threatening for a long time came out, then heavy rain even caused a long interruption. No further improvements were possible on the wet track, so Neel Jani's best time from the previous evening stood. "Cool, last year I was the first Swiss driver since Jo Siffert in 1968, now I'm at the front for the second time on Saturday. But then we were the unluckiest of the three Porsche teams, I only led for three corners before we had the first technical problems. So I hope that we can turn our good starting position into a result this time."
Audi hopes for an optimal race
Jani is not yet thinking about victory, even though Porsche has made the strongest impression so far. They occupy the front row of the grid ahead of the two Toyota TS050 Hybrids and the two Audi R18s. The two Porsche rivals had less luck in traffic than Jani in the time chase on Wednesday and were unable to counter due to the weather. They plan to do so for the race. "It's always part of Audi's strategy to concentrate on the race anyway, especially as we would hardly have been able to match Porsche's best times here," says Marcel Fässler. "In terms of the hybrid concept, we can call up slightly less electrical energy than our opponents, but we try to make up for this in the corners."
There will definitely be a Swiss winner among the LMP1 private teams. Either he will be in one of the two Rebellions that occupy the fourth row of the grid, or his name will be Simon Trummer, who will be driving the ByKolles team with the same AER V6 turbo engine. In the LMP2 class, Mathias Beche has the best chances of success in a French team, while the Mexican-flagged team of Benoît Morand - winner of the world championship opener at Silverstone - is only 13th on the grid and Race Performance with Niki Leutwiler is P21 out of 23.
In the GT Pro class, the four American Ford GTs have put in an impressive performance so far, finishing first, second, fourth and fifth on the grid. Ford achieved the first of four consecutive overall victories 50 years ago with the GT40. The only Swiss GT driver is Joël Camathias from Ticino in the GT-Am class, in which his Porsche team is 8th on the grid out of 13 cars.
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Photos: Factory
