24 Hours of Le Mans Hyperpole: JOTA Sport’s #38 ORECA 07 on top

António Félix da Costa, driving JOTA Sport’s #38 ORECA 07, clinched the pole at the 89th 24 Hours of Le Mans.

FREE PRACTICE 3

Before taking on the Hyperpole for the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans, the highlight of Thursday’s action, 26 ORECA chassis hit the track for the third free practice.

As during the preceding free practice and qualifying sessions, JOTA Sport’s #38 ORECA established the time to beat of 3:30.507. The United Autosports team’s #22 and #23 ORECA 07s rounded out the top 3 ahead of Panis Racing’s #65 and Team WRT’s #31. Association SRT41’s #84 ORECA 07 in the Innovative Car class clocked the 23rd fastest time after three hours of sessions interrupted by two red flags due to incidents for IDEC SPORT Racing’s #17 ORECA 07 and DragonSpeed’s #21 ORECA 07 (first in Pro/Am).

In Hypercar, Alpine Elf Matmut’s Nicolas Lapierre took the overall lead in the final moments with the fastest lap in 3:26.594.

HYPERPOLE

After 30 minutes of battle and having led every session since yesterday’s qualifying, António Félix da Costa, very much in his element, clocked the quickest lap in 3:27.950 at the wheel of JOTA Sport’s #38 ORECA 07.

Impressively, he finished five-tenths of a second ahead of the #41 fielded by Team WRT, a rookie at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but with speedy driver Louis Delétraz in its corner. Then followed Panis Racing’s #65 ORECA 07, G-Drive Racing’s #26 Aurus 01 and the United Autosports team’s #32 and #23 ORECA 07s.

In the Hypercar class, Nicolas Lapierre qualified the Alpine A480 in third position behind the two Toyota GR010 Hybrids and ahead of the two Glickenhaus cars.

Hyperpole Classification

LMP2

1 | #38 JOTA Sport 3:27.950

2 | #41 Team WRT 3:28.470

3 | #65 Panis Racing 3:28.586

4 | #26 G-Drive Racing 3:28.943

5 | #32 United Autosports 3:29.078

6 | #23 United Autosports 3:30.027

Hypercar

3 | #36 Alpine Elf Matmut Endurance Team | 3:25.574

FREE PRACTICE 4

During the final free practice session, G-Drive Racing’s Aurus 01 clocked the fastest time of 3:31.414 ahead of Racing Team Nederland’s #29 (first in Pro/Am) and United Autosports’ #22. The PR1 Motorsport team’s #24 and JOTA Sport’s #38 completed the top 5.

The Alpine A480 finished second with a time of 3:28.280 behind the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans warm-up is set for Saturday at 11:30 and the start of the 89th running of the race will be given at 16:00.