In a World Motor Sport Council meeting, the FIA has approved an implementation for the World Endurance Championship to change the outgoing qualifying format to the ‘Hyperpole’ setup seen at Le Mans only.

From next year, a new qualifying procedure will host a 12-minute session for each of the Hypercar and the LMGT3 classes, followed by two 10-minute long Hyperpole sessions (for each of the classes).

Having only been utilised for the Le Mans 24 Hours, the top-10 competitors in each class from the first qualifying sessions will continue to Hyperpole to determine their grid positions.

The new style replaces the outgoing WEC qualifying arrangement which hosts 15-minute sessions for each of the three classes.

In 2024, with the absence of LMP2 apart from the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the WEC will be made up of the expanding Hypercar field, and the new LMGT3 class.

Within the opening address by FIA President Mohammed Ben Sulayem, he mentioned the WEC’s upcoming Hypercar climate.

“… I also welcome the recent announcement of Aston Martin and their commitment to enter the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship from 2025.

“This class is going from strength-to-strength with an impressive line-up of some of the world’s biggest manufacturers.”

LMGT3’s technical regulations, which are based around the existing FIA GT3 platform, was also approved in the meeting as they will replace the LMGTE formula used since the inaugural WEC season in 2012.

The new GT category “will focus on gentlemen drivers and private teams”, the FIA said in an online summarisation.

WEC-specific adaptations will feature on LMGT3 cars, such as luminescent number panels, leader lights and torque sensors.

Toyota’s Kamui Kobayashi took pole position for the 24 Hours of Le Mans during Thursday’s Hyperpole session, but reckons he could have gone even faster had it not been for a track limits infringement.

The Japanese driver took a second consecutive pole position in the Hyperpole format, after also coming out on top during the inaugural edition of the ACO’s new qualifying format during the 2020 edition of the event.

Kobayashi ultimately set the pace with a best time of 03:23:900 in his #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, which was enough to beat out team-mate Brendon Hartley and rivals Alpine and Glickenhaus.

“To get the first Hypercar pole position is great,” Kobayashi said afterwards. “We came here with our new GR010 HYBRID for the first time and we have been constantly making adjustments to improve it. The team did a fantastic job to prepare a car which can achieve that lap time.”

“I could have gone even quicker but I had a track limits penalty which was a pity. To be fastest on one lap isn’t enough; we have focused on preparing our car to be successful in the race.”

“We’ve had a few pole positions here on our car over the last years and not won the race so we know this is no guarantee. The 24 hours are long and we always need a bit of luck.”

During the post-race press conference, Kobayashi was pressed on his lap time as the 03:23:900 pole time was considerably quicker than the 03:30 lap times that the ACO touted when the Hypercar formula was announced.

When asked, Kobayashi quipped:

“So now, sounds like we need a change of category again, we have to change the regulations to be slowed down I guess. Because we shouldn’t be so fast.”

Hartley ‘kicking himself’ after double upshift

Kobayashi’s team-mate, Brendon Hartley, was 0.295s behind in second place to ensure a front-row lockout for the Japanese manufacturer for the first edition of Le Mans under Le Mans Hypercar regulations.

After the session, Hartley admitted that he had made a mistake on his fastest lap, accidentally pulling a double upshift and losing time.

 “First of all it felt amazing to drive the GR010 HYBRID with low-fuel, new tyres and the sun going down into the night,” said Hartley. “The car felt great, and a big compliment to the team for preparing it so well after Kazuki’s small moment in practice.

“Congratulations to Kamui who did a fantastic lap. I’m kind of kicking myself because on my fastest lap I made a mistake. I shifted two gears at once up to seventh and lost a bit of time.”

“We definitely had a chance to get pole because the cars were very equal. On my second lap I had traffic when I was going quickly so we had the ingredients to do it.’

“There is a little bit of disappointment but still I am pleased to be on the front row and happy for car #7.”

Kamui Kobayashi has ensured pole position for the #7 Toyota for the 89th running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The Japanese ace led a front-row lockout for Toyota by posting a time of 03:23:900 to take pole, 0.295s faster than team-mate Brendon Hartley in the #8 sister car.

Behind them, Nicolas Lapierre qualified third in the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson, 1.6s off pole position.

The two Glickenhaus 007 LMHs will start from fourth and fifth respectively, with Olivier Pla in the #708 beating out team-mate Romain Dumas in the #709 car.

In LMP2, Antonio Felix da Costa came out on top in a battle with Louis Deletraz to take pole position for JOTA.

Da Costa and Deletraz traded the top time back and forth, but ultimately the Portuguese driver won out by taking the #38 ORECA 07-Gibson to a time of 03:27:950.

That was just under half a second faster than Deletraz, who took second in the #41 Team WRT ORECA 07-Gibson, with Panis Racing’s Will Stevens third.

Nyck de Vries took third for G-Drive Racing, ahead of the two United Autosports cars of Nico Jamin and Paul di Resta.

In GTE Pro, privateer squad HubAuto Racing scored a major upset by beating factory entries from Ferrari, Corvette and Porsche to class pole.

Dries Vanthoor proved quickest in the #72 Porsche 911 RSR-19 with a time of 03:46:882, just under two-tenths quicker than the #52 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Daniel Serra.

Nick Tandy was third for Corvette Racing, with the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of James Calado fourth ahead of the #91 Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Gianmaria Bruni.

One car in class failed to set a time: Kevin Estre crashed out of the session early by hitting the wall in the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 at Indianapolis and briefly halting the session with a red flag.

Julien Andlauer, meanwhile, put the #88 Dempsey-Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 on pole in GTE Am with a time of 03:47:987, ahead of the #86 GR Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Tom Gamble.

Matteo Cairoli was third in the #56 Team Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR-19, ahead of Cetilar Racing’s Antonio Fuoco and Inception Racing’s Ben Barnicoat.

Felipe Fraga, driving the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR, rounded out the class.

Toyota drivers Mike Conway and Kazuki Nakajima say that they are both looking forward to the return of the Hyperpole session at Le Mans, which takes place later on Thursday.

The ACO’s special qualifying format for the 24 Hours of Le Mans was first introduced for the 2020 edition of the race. It saw the top cars in each of the four categories advance from regular qualifying to a shorter, second session where the battle for pole position in each of the classes is decided.

Last year, Toyota’s Kamui Kobayashi came out on top in the session and took pole, and the shootout-style format was met with positive reception. It has therefore also returned to the calendar for the 2021 edition, with this year’s Hyperpole session set to take place at 21:00 pm on Thursday night.

When asked by MotorsportWeek.com if Mike Conway, who saw team-mate Kobayashi take pole position last year, if he supports the return of the format, he was very positive.

“I like it,” said Conway. “Because I think we’ve all been asking for the last few years. You barely get a clear lap and if you do, then you’ve got a good chance of being on pole.

“So to split the classes and have a dedicated time to knock out a good lap – I think it’s cool. The fans want to see the ultimate lap time, and so do we. So, yeah, I think it’s a good idea and I think it will hang around.”

Conway’s team-mate on the other side of the garage, Kazuki Nakajima, says he fully agrees with his team-mate as it also lessens the impact of traffic from slower categories.

“I totally agree with Mike,” said Nakajima. “Before it was kind of a gamble in qualifying if you get traffic or not, especially when every car was on the track at the same time, including GTs and the prototypes.

“It was a big nightmare. But now it’s separate and also the lap times between Hypercar and the LMP are much smaller than before so there is much less risk of traffic so for this point, I think it’s good. And also it’s good for the show as well. It highlights qualifying maybe more than before.”

Albuquerque: Hyperpole format needs work

Not everybody is universally positive about the current qualifying format, however.

United Autosports’ Filipe Albuquerque, who missed out on a spot in Thursday’s session after getting blocked in regular qualifying, believes the format is too compressed compared to previous years.

“I know that they changed qualifying last year to have Hyperpole to see the true pace of everyone, but we’re not really seeing true pace,” he said.

“Because beforehand, you had like three qualifyings that was working as a session and you could put tyres whenever you want. At least it gives you a bigger window to put a lap, one single free lap when you have like more than one hour.

“One hour, it means that everyone’s going ballistic crazy to put a lap together and we see more crashes in one hour then the whole session together.”

Filipe Albuquerque has criticized the driving standards of drivers in the GTE categories after he says two claimed instances of blocking in qualifying practice caused him to miss out on a spot on Hyperpole at Le Mans.

Albuquerque was in the car for the hour-long session in the #22 United Autosports ORECA 07-Gibson, but was unable to make it through to Hyperpole after he says he was blocked twice by two separate drivers during flying laps.

As a result, the defending class winners in LMP2 will start the race from twelfth position, 1.427s off the fastest time in class and some four-tenths away from a spot in Hyperpole.

After the session, a frustrated Albuquerque told MotorsportWeek.com that he struggled to understand the driving behaviour from some of the other cars out on track.

“I don’t get as frustrated when people do mistakes and cause a yellow flag or slow zone or red flags, they’re doing their best, I really understand that there is nothing you can do about it, just bad timing.

“It’s for me a struggle to understand and that I don’t accept from other professional drivers is deliberately deciding to destroy the laps of people that are on a flying lap, so when they are on the out laps, or even on in laps.”

“The in laps is hard to say, because we never know when they are pitting. But definitely on the out laps, it’s what is the most critical because you can choose a gap. And you know exactly where you’re going to pick the GT if they’re on a normal pace, so you pick your gap. But if they’re coming from the pits, it’s impossible.”

Albuquerque went on to explain he had a particular problem with Ben Barker, who was driving the #86 GR Racing Porsche 911 RSR-19. TV footage showed a frustrated Albuquerque confronting the British driver after the session was over.

The Portuguese driver accused Barker of failing to give him the necessary room on his flying lap.

“I did the whole straight, going to the first Mulsanne from Tertre Rouge to the first chicane on Mulsanne, flashing him.”

“And he saw me because I dived in super late, and if he would have not seen we would have crashed, so he opened it to let me pass, but I still lost four tenths. I still lost four tenths, and for me, that’s a decision that he took.”

“I went to talk to him and he said he didn’t see. But I don’t believe that, because they have a nice rearview camera, they have one kilometre to see who is in their mirrors and there is flashing lights. And if it was a small straight, I could still believe that, but it’s one kilometer.”

“I struggle with that. And then the other one was the Porsche with Bruni. I mean, we’re talking about pro drivers, they know what they’re doing and this is just unacceptable.”

Albuquerque went on to explain how a disappointing qualifying result could potentially have an impact on his race on Saturday.

“You can say ‘Yeah, but you don’t win the race in qualifying’, but I can tell you something – it’s a snowball effect. Starting from behind around other guys and to get you know, when you have a better pace to fight, let’s say 10 drivers, you know, three of them have a gentleman driver on it.

“To pass them, they’re going to make my life hard for me to go ahead they are not even fighting for the same race because when the gentleman drivers all go in, it’s going to be different.

“I’m going to put take risks to pass him when I should not be. As we know, Le Mans sometimes little things add to your race, like you forced too much the car into the brakes, into the curbs.

“It’s just little things that adds to the 24 hours, and the way it is nowadays, we’re so much on a limit that you need a perfectly clean race.

And that’s the only reason I’m frustrated because I can come next year with the exact same package being one of the fastest but we will never control that flipping of a coin, clean lap one qualifying when you have only one hour. That’s it, it is out your control, always.”

The Hyperpole session will make its return for the second year in a row to determine the top spots in qualifying for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. After Wednesday’s qualifying session, who will be battling in Hyperpole on Thursday night? MotorsportWeek.com takes a look.

All Hypercars were already in the session on account of there only being five cars in the class. That means Toyota, Alpine and Glickenhaus are all automatically through to Hyperpole.

LMP2

• #38 JOTA – ORECA 07-Gibson: Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix da Costa, Anthony Davidson
• #26 G-Drive Aurus 01- Gibson: Roman Rusinov, Franco Colapinto, Nyck de Vries
• #41 Team WRT – ORECA 07-Gibson: Robert Kubica, Louis Deletraz, Yifei Ye
• #65 Panis Racing – Julien Canal, Will Stevens, James Allen
• #32 United Autosports – ORECA 07-Gibson: Nico Jamin, Jonathan Aberdein, Manuel Maldonado
• #23 United Autosports – ORECA 07-Gibson: Paul di Resta, Alex Lynn, Wayne Boyd

GTE Pro

• #52 AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE Evo: Daniel Serra, Miguel Molina, Sam Bird
• #51 AF Corse – Ferrari 488 GTE Evo: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Come Ledogar
• #92 Porsche GT Team – Porsche 911 RSR-19: Kevin Estre, Neel Jani, Michael Christensen
• #64 Corvette Racing – Corvette C8.R: Tommy Milner, Nick Tandy, Alexander Sims
• #72 HubAuto Racing– Porsche 911 RSR-19: Dries Vanthoor, Alvaro Parente, Maxime Martin
• #91 Porsche GT Team – Porsche 911 RSR-19: Richard Lietz, Gianmaria Bruni, Fred Makowiecki

GTE Am

• #88 Dempsey-Proton Racing – Porsche 911 RSR-19: Julien Andlauer, Dominique Bastien, Lance David Arnold
• #86 GR Racing – Porsche 911 RSR-19: Mike Wainwright, Ben Barker, Tom Gamble
• #47 Cetilar Racing – Ferrar 488 GTE Evo: Roberto Lacorte, Giorgio Sernagiotto, Antonio Fuoco
• #71 Inception Racing– Ferrari 488 GTE Evo: Brendan Iribe, Ollie Milroy, Ben Barnicoat
• 7 Dempsey-Proton Racing – Porsche 911 RSR: Matt Campbell, Christian Ried, Riccardo Pera
• #56 Team Project 1 – Porsche 911 RSR: Egidio Perfetti, Matteo Cairoli, Riccardo Pera
• #33 TF Sport – Aston Martin Vantage AMR – Ben Keating, Dylan Pereira, Felipe Fraga

Gianmaria Bruni credits the setup changes made to the Porsche 911 RSR-19 for making the car easier to drive, which contributed to the Italian taking GTE Pro for the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Bruni put the #91 Porsche on pole position after initially struggling throughout the Thursday practice sessions, but says that the German outfit significantly changed the setup on the car. This led to Bruni setting a time of 03:50.874 in the first-ever Hyperpole qualifiyng session, which was enough to take pole position.

“After initial difficulties in the first practice,we completely changed the setup of our car – with success! Our 911 RSR is now
significantly easier to drive,” Bruni commented. “That became obvious in the qualifying and the Hyperpole. I didn’t make any mistakes in my flying lap and now I’m on pole with my teammates Richard [Lietz] and Fred [Makowiecki].

“It’s a fantastic result for Porsche. Now we want to be just as successful in the race.”

While Bruni stuck the #91 Porsche on pole position, the #92 car in the hands of Michael Christensen struggled a lot more throughout the session. Christensen ultimately qualified sixth, slowest of all six runners in the shootout session.

The Dane stated that he was disappointed at the result while also pointing out that the #92 Porsche should be quick in the race.

“One Porsche is on pole but unfortunately I was only able to qualify our car on sixth place,” Christensen said. “We need to take another
good look at the data to see why we weren’t quite at the same level as the sister car.

“The starting position at a 24-hour race isn’t the main thing. The pace over the distance is more important. And that’s exactly where we’re looking good. We should be fast, especially during the long night.

I’m now looking forward to the race and I’m curious to see whether the anticipated rain will actually arrive.”

Michael Christensen believes the new Hyperpole qualifying format should eliminate unexpected qualifying upset due to the lessened amount of traffic out on track.

Hyperpole which will take place on Friday morning, will see the top six in each class out on track to battle for pole position, as opposed the more traditional format that sees every team out on track at the same time.

“I hope it gives less room for unexpected results to happen,” Christensen exclusively told MotorsportWeek.com speaking on behalf of Porsche partner Mobil1. “What I mean is that there is less traffic so usually there should be no traffic on that lap. So you should really see who is fastest, and hopefully you’ll get a chance to go for pole without traffic and so on, which is usually a big thing here for the last few years.

For sure, you have a lot of time to put in a pole lap because there’s many hours of qualifying the past years, here it’s only thirty minutes I think for Hyperpole, but at least there’s no traffic.

So you have one shot, probably, maybe two but hopefully without traffic and then you would see who is the fastest without any slip stream or traffic. So I think it’s a good thing. Good feature.”

The Dane went on to explain that the chance of having a tow down the Mulsanne Straight from one of the prototype runners will be a lot smaller, which should lead to smaller gaps between the cars.

“There’s still a chance of having traffic, for sure, but much less now,” Christensen continued. “I think it’s only one third of the grid would be there for the Hyperpole, and it’s a big track. I would say that it can happen, but it shouldn’t.

“In the past, the thing is that you could really get unlucky with the traffic or you could get super lucky having a tow from an LMP car each straight so you had huge, massive slipstream, which is a lot of lap time here.

“And then you have the other guys who have traffic so that would make a big split in terms of gaps between the cars after qualifying in the past. This should eliminate that a little bit.”

Anthony Davidson reckons that there is room for further improvement in Le Mans’ new qualifying format after the JOTA team missed out on a Hyperpole spot due to traffic on track.

Davidson’s team-mate Antonio Felix da Costa failed to qualify in the top six, which prevented the #38 ORECA 07-Gibson from making it through into Friday’s new Hyperpole session. Speaking to MotorsportWeek.com after Thursday’s session, Davidson says the slower traffic out on track was to blame for JOTA’s elimination.

“Traffic, just traffic,” Davidson ssaid. “I mean, everyone had traffic today, even the fastest time out there, and it’s never the same for everyone in that sense.

“It’s impossible to know our true pace, because everyone had traffic. That’s the reality of it, really.

And I’m all up for the Hyperpole format, I think it’s a really good idea, I think it creates a new spectacle but I just think I’m of the opinion if you’re gonna make a spectacle out of qualifying, just split the category of GTE and LMP, like in WEC and then you can have a more fair comparison between cars’ performances and drivers’ performances.”

Davidson made the comparison with Formula One, which the ex-F1 driver says also took a while to iron out the kinks in its qualifying format.

“I think it took Formula One a long, long time to come up with this fantastic format that we have at the moment, and I don’t think it should be touched and the only time it was touched, it was a disaster in recent times, and it only lasted two races.

So we quickly went back to the format we have today, it’s a tried and tested system and I think it is good that we’re starting to look at the qualifying format in Le Mans but I do think it can be improved further and make it even better.”

The Briton said he was disappointed to miss out on a top six spot after the team ran throughout the day with a qualifying set-up.

“Just to simplify it: the car has been quite pointy and for qualifying you need a pointy balance,” Davidson explained. “That wasn’t our intention but that’s just the way it unfolded.

So actually in qualifying we were quite happy with the car balance, but for the race we need to calm it down a bit and create a bit more understeer in the car.”

United Autosports’ Job van Uitert says he is glad to see the #32 ORECA go through into Hyperpole after spending an hour in the pits in practice with a gearbox issue.

Van Uitert, Alex Brundle and Will Owen had limited track time in the first practice session at Le Mans after the team encountered a gearbox issue. The problem was fixed in time for the team to resume practice and was in qualifying, Brundle was one of the six drivers to qualify for Friday’s Hyperpole session.

Talking to MotorsportWeek.com, Van Uitert says he was happy to see the car make it into the top six after the troubled day of running.

“Honestly, until then, we did not really have a proper quali run,” the Dutchman said. “We saw Nyck [De Vries] and JOTA doing good jobs with their quali runs, and we know that they were going to be on the pace, same for Paul [di Resta], so it would have been tight, but in the end glad that Alex stuck a lap together after getting it deleted.”

Van Uitert went on to explain that the team has opted for Brundle to carry out all qualifying duties, while the less experienced Van Uitert focus on other aspects of the team’s preparations for the twice-around-the-clock enduro.

“Tomorrow Alex will do it again because he did the qualifying today. We decided before heading here, Alex is obviously more experienced than me.

“I’m going to focus on long runs, Alex is going to focus on quali runs so we’re not going to have a big showoff between us who is going to qualify, because in Le Mans, qualification is nice but it doesn’t really mean anything.”

“So I think we’re looking okay. The pace is there. We still need to figure out little things and start really working on long runs.

Today has been a bit of a processional day so you don’t really know where you are compared to the rest, but we will see, we will see. Especially on Saturday.”