Toyota Gazoo Racing Claim Pole Position for the Le Mans 24 Hours

World Champions Toyota Gazoo Racing will start the 87^th Le Mans 24 Hours from pole position on Saturday. The team sealed both first and second places on the grid in a close qualifying session at the Circuit de la Sarthe yesterday evening (Thursday).

Kamui Kobayashi earned his second Le Mans pole and the fifth overall for Toyota with a lap of 3min 15.497sec in the No7 TS050 Hybrid he shares with Mike Conway and José María López.

Kazuki Nakajima, himself twice a Le Mans pole-sitter, made it an all-Toyota Gazoo Racing front row for the third year running, securing second place for the No8 car in which he, Sébastien Buemi and Fernando Alonso were race winners last year.

Kobayashi said: “I was hoping I could improve on my 2017 lap record, but missed a little bit of time. Two years ago the track conditions and traffic were perfect, but it wasn’t quite the same this time. Nonetheless, it’s a great feeling to be on pole and now we will put all our efforts into getting the result on Sunday afternoon.”

The grid was determined by the best single lap time from any of the three two-hour qualifying sessions. Despite heavy showers all week, the decisive, final session took place in dry conditions, setting the scene for a pole position shoot-out.

At the chequered flag, the No7 Toyota sat on top of the timing sheets, 0.411 seconds ahead of the No8 car. A close session saw the No17 SMP Racing car come within 0.662 seconds of taking pole, while the No3 Rebellion car was just 0.907 seconds adrift. Not since 2011 has the gap covering the first two rows of the grid been less than a second.

Away from the circuit, over the course of the race weekend, Toyota will be providing additional excitement for fans at the Toyota Gazoo Racing Fan Village.

As well as a variety of cockpit experiences with Tayota Gazoo Racing cars, a pit-stop challenge and guest appearances by members of the WEC team, the village is hosting the debut of the all-new Toyota Gazoo Racing Official Simulators, which are powered by high-end, T-GT official steering wheels provided by Thrustmaster^® and run Gran Turismo Sport on Playstation^®4.

The simulators are being introduced following the successful launch of the GR Supra GT Cup, the first global one-make e-motorsport race series on Gran Turismo Sport. They are designed to give fans around Europe a taste of the excitement and possibilities of e-motorsport and to introduce the competition to new audiences at Toyota events.

Motorsport fans visiting Le Mans can test their racing skills against benchmark times set by Toyota Gazoo Racing’s WEC drivers. The GR Supra GT Cup Demo will also be featured as a mini-competition for fans with prizes provided by Thrustmaster^®, including a T150 PRO Force Feedback controller.

The Toyota Gazoo Racing Fan Village will be open from 11am to 5pm today (Friday); 9am to 2am on Saturday; and from 9am to 3pm on Sunday.

Combined qualifying results

1^st       No7 Toyota Gazoo Racing (Nakajima/ConwayLópez) 3min 15.497sec, 80 laps
2^nd      No8 Toyota Gazoo Racing (Kobayashi/Alonso/Buemi) +0.411sec, 83 laps

3^rd       No17 SMP (Sarrazin/Orudzhev/Sirotkin) +0.662sec, 51 laps

4^th       No3 Rebellion (Laurent/Berthon/Menezes) +0.907sec, 46 laps
5^th       No11 SMP (Petrov/Aleshin/Vandoorne) +1.168sec, 44 laps

6^th       No1 Rebellion (Jani/Lotterer/Senna) +1.313sec, 57 laps

ENDS