Le Mans: Cadillac fastest; Porsche disqualification

      Qualifying at Le Mans takes place in several stages, the first of which took place on Wednesday evening, and on Thursday the fight for pole will continue, and the 15 fastest cars in the Hypercar category will participate in it.

      The crews who qualified for the so-called Hyperpole were determined based on the results of the first part of qualifying, in which Alex Lynn, a Cadillac Team Jota racer, showed the best time. But at the same time, one of the Toyota crews, car No. 7, was only on the 17th line of Wednesday's protocol, so it dropped out of the further struggle, although the Japanese team is usually always among the favorites.

      Lynn is driving a Cadillac V-Series sports prototype.The R with tail number 12 completed its best lap in 3:22.847, beating BMW factory team driver Dries Ventura by just 0.040 seconds, with a lap length of 13.626 km.

      Toyota's loser turned out to be Nick DeVries, who lost to Lynn by 2.215 seconds, and his crew was among the six who eliminated at this stage. But he was not the only one who suffered such a fate: the crew of Porsche No. 6, who showed the 4th time yesterday, was disqualified because his car did not comply with the technical regulations – it weighed less than allowed by the rules.

      The verdict of the stewards is as follows: the result shown in the first part of qualifying has been annulled, the crew is not allowed to participate in the Hyperpole and starts the race last among the Hypercar category cars.

      And the 15 fastest hypercars will compete in the Hyperpole today, and starting this year, the final stage of qualifying will also be divided into two parts.

      Antonio Giovinazzi was the best Ferrari driver yesterday, the second 499P sports prototype of the factory team from Maranello rose to the 6th line of the protocol, but moved to the 5th after the disqualification of Porsche.

      The crew of the Alpine Endurance Team, i.e. the Renault factory team, for which Mick Schumacher stands, showed the 10th time, but eventually rose to the 9th place. By the way, it was only because of Porsche's problems that one of the Aston Martin crews passed through the Hyperpole, which in reality was the 16th.

      And here are those who will definitely not take part in the next stage of qualifying: we have already mentioned one of the Toyota cars, but also both Peugeot 9X8, the Porsche of the Proton Competition customer team and the second Aston Martin hypercar.

      The Hyperpole races will start today at 8 p.m. local time.