Alex Lynn had to be feeling quite good. His final Hyperpole lap edged out Sebastien Bourdais by 0.018 seconds to take the top spot and give Cadillac a front row lockout. But Kevin Estre in the Penske Porsche had yet to complete his final circuit. Estre gaiuned enough ground in the second half of the lap to steal the pole from Cadillac. His margin over Lynn was 0.148 seconds.

Penske cars have now won poles at the Daytona 500, the Indianapolis 500, and Le Mans.

Team Jota number 12, driven by Callum Ilott, did not participate because the car was not ready in time following a practice crash.

In LMP2, the number 14 car from AO Racing, affectionately known as Spike, will start on pole for that class. Louis Delatraz, who drives for Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA, looks for his first Le Mans win after several close calls. The car has been in the top three in the practice sessions.

GT3 honors go to McLaren number 70, Brendan Iribe gave McLaren its first Le Mans pole.

The 2024 Le Mans grid is quite deep in all classes. I’m looking for a very competitive race.

Le Mans Continues to Astound

I thought that after a couple of days here i would find this event to return to an ordinary race weekend. The surprises keep coming. I di not expect much from yesterday’s Hyperpole shootout, nor did I expect much interest from the fans. The session had the largest crowd of the week. I watched from the same spot as I did for qualifying, just before the Dunlop bridge.

Wednesday for qualifying the crowd was about four deep from the fence. Thursday fans stood at least eight deep. I have no idea how those in the back saw anything.

I also had a chance meeting with some fellow Indycar fans. I saw on social media that they were coming, but did not have much hope of ever seeing them here. Yet, we found each other. Meeting siomeone you know here is a totally random act unless a meeting point has been pre arranged.

Friday is the Drivers’ parade at Place de la Republique. It begins a 4 pm local time. I plan to be there by 2, just going by the crowds I saw at Scrutineering last week.

I do have some thoughts on the new Indycar television package and the schedule, which I will put in another article later today. The six hour time difference is both a luxury and a curse when figuring out when to post things. It is 1:30 am Eastern as I am writing this. I try to post around 6 am Eastern, as most of you seem to think sleep is more important than reading my blog.