Feeling the heat

Our 919 Hybrids will start from the second row on Saturday, behind the impressively quick Toyotas TS050s. With a lap time of 3:17.259, Neel Jani claimed the third fastest lap around the 35°C, 13.629km road circuit, with Timo Bernhard putting the sister 919 on fourth with a lap of 3:18.067. But our caps are doffed to Toyota works driver Kamui Kobayashi, who posted a remarkable 3:14.791, not only putting his car on pole, but smashing the lap record in the process.

Fritz Enzinger, Vice President of LMP1, expressed the sentiments of the Porsche paddock: "Congratulations to Toyota and Kamui Kobayashi. We knew he would be fast but his lap was really sensational. On our side, we missed out on a front row position on the grid by a tenth of a second. Besides that, our qualifying was okay. We’re looking good over long runs and are optimistic for the race.”

Meanwhile in GTE-Pro class, the all-new 911 RSRs continue to show real potential in their tricky debut year. Car no. 92 turned the seventh fastest qualifying lap, missing out on one of the front spots by a mere 1.010 seconds, while RSR no. 91 will start the race from the 13th position. In the GTE-Am class, featuring 2015-spec 911 RSRs, car no. 77, run by Dempsey Proton Racing, sits in fourth.

Dr. Frank-Steffen Walliser, VP of Motorsport and GT Cars, remains typically focused on the job in hand: “The qualifying is over and now it’s time to go racing. We managed to improve from session to session, but so did our competition. In the end, the racetrack became significantly faster but unfortunately we couldn’t make the most of it. Our main focus was on preparing for the race, especially on the tyres because, with such high temperatures, they play an important role. All the vehicles in the GT classes were very close, so in this respect we’re sure to witness an extremely exciting race.”

Wheels roll at 15.00 CET on Saturday. Best of luck to all the teams. Stay tuned as it all unfolds.