HARTLEY PIPS ‘MR QUALIFYING’
Brendon Hartley was naturally overjoyed to claim his first Le Mans pole position. There were a couple of reasons why it was all the sweeter, and one of them was who he beat to the top spot in the Hyperpole session on Thursday evening – Kamui Kobayashi, or “Mr Qualifying” as Hartley called him.
Toyota sent Hartley and Kobayashi out for the short, sharp half-hour Hyperpole session for the fastest six cars in class, or in the case of Hypercar all five entries, from Q1 on Wednesday. The Japanese driver, of course, holds the qualifying record at Le Mans from 2017 and was bidding for another one last week. A fifth pole would have taken him clear of
Le Mans legend Jacky Ickx’s four.
“Kamui is Mr Qualifying around here; he does some amazing stuff and he wanted that fifth pole,” said Hartley. “The car felt amazing, so thanks to my team-mates for letting me have all the fun. Qualifying is the best the car is going to feel around here this week, but that said it’s probably the most high-pressure situation.”
That pressure increased on Hartley during the session. The #8 Toyota sat atop the times after the first runs, Hartley edging out Kobayashi by the better part of a second with a 3m25.213s to 3m26.130s. Kobayashi jumped ahead on their second set of tyres with a 3m24.585s, with Alpine driver Nicolas Lapierre banging in a 3m24.850s to go second. Hartley hit traffic in the Porsche Curves and failed to improve.
Hartley did improve on his second lap on those tyres with a 3m24.408s to leapfrog the boss. Kobayashi’s 3m24.585s was subsequently scrubbed out for a track-limits infraction at Tertre Rouge, but his 3m24.828s on his final lap was still good enough to pip Lapierre to make it an all-toyota front row.