Memimpin Toyota bertahan dari pukulan berat di kualifikasi 24 Jam Le Mans pertama

Full Qualifying 1 results for the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours

The #7 Toyota Gazoo Racing squad holds provisional pole position for the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours thanks to an early lap from Kamui Kobayashi but the car had to survive a dramatic clash with the LMP2 class leaders in the opening qualifying session.

The long-time session leaders, with the fastest lap of 3m 17.161s set by Kobayashi, suffered a shocking collision with the LMP2 times leader #31 DragonSpeed Oreca at the Ford chicane but both cars avoided serious damage.

Midway through qualifying one, Roberto Gonzalez appeared to spin at the Ford chicane entry and in his attempt to cut across the circuit to return to the pits the Mexican driver collected an unsighted Mike Conway. The #31 DragonSpeed got away with left-front wheel and fairing damage, while the Toyota also avoided a prolonged stop in the pits due to a quick work from the mechanics.

The #7 Toyota retained top spot at the end of the opening qualifying almost half a second faster than the #17 SMP Racing thanks to an impressive lap set by Egor Orudzhev.

Thomas Laurent pushed the #3 Rebellion Racing up to third place late on, albeit almost two seconds behind the #17 SMP Racing car, before suffering a surprise spin immediately after setting the fastest lap.

It was a puzzling session for defending Le Mans 24 Hours champions #8 Toyota of Fernando Alonso, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima who struggled for pace throughout, with Alonso only able to reach fourth place with a best effort of 3m 19.632s late on.

In LMP2, the #31 DragonSpeed survived its hit with the leading #7 Toyota to keep top spot in the class by just 0.131s, with Anthony Davidson setting its best effort of 3m 26.804s, ahead of the Le Mans 24 Hours defending category champions #36 Signatech Alpine Matmut.

The #22 United Autosports Ligier slotted into third place in ahead of 2018 class pole-sitter IDEC Sport Oreca.

In GTE-Pro, a late flurry of quick laps saw top spot traded between multiple teams before settling with #67 Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK thanks to Harry Tincknell’s 3m 49.530s which saw off Nick Tandy in the #93 Porsche GT Team. That meant long-time leader #97 Aston Martin Racing was shuffled back to third.

But momentum appeared with Porsche with the #91, #94 and #92 911 RSR entries completing the top six in class.

In GTE-AM, Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche held the fastest time throughout the session heading off #56 Team Project 1 and the sister #77 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche.

The #99 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche did not take part in qualifying after the heavy shunt by Tracy Krohn in practice which wrecked the front suspension.

Qualifying continues tomorrow with the second and third sessions to decide the starting grid for the 2019 Le Mans 24 Hours.