Even with rain during the early part of qualifying, the #8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Nicolas Lapierre and Sébastien Buemi secured their third pole position of the season during a red-flag affected session. (Changing weather conditions made the circuit difficult to manage in some places, especially at the sharp left turn after the 1.2 kilometer straight.)
Davidson may have initially been caught out early on, but the Brit and Buemi were able to make the best of it. The Swiss ace was pushing hard and increasing the pace to ensure a dominant performance in qualifying. Davidson suggested to the team that they wait for 4-5 minutes for a wet patch at turn 11 to dry, though when it was his turn to go out, he forgot about said patch and went off. In the end, it was with a bit of risk but “the strategy was perfect."
Over a four-lap average, the pair recorded a cumulative lap time of 1:49.093 seconds, as the competition were unable to get under the 1m50s barrier to depose them. This was due to the red flag and yellow flag incidents involving the #12 Rebellion R-One-Toyota and #37 SMP Racing cars leaving just four and a half minutes on the clock to decide who would end up on pole.
Porsche were attempting to show the pace with their new high-downforce packaged 919 Hybrids, with the #14 of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb taking second behind the #8 Toyota. They managed to see off the sister #20 car of Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley by a mere 0.019 seconds based on average lap times.
Jani was disallowed one of his quickest lap times, due to being a bit too ERS-happy, which was the first time that a lap in qualifying had been disallowed due to the strict fuel usage regulations imposed by the FIA and ACO.
Audi Sport have not been the fastest when it comes to qualifying, but the #2 R18 e-tron quattro of Marcel Fässler, André Lotterer and Benoît Tréluyer took fourth on the grid.
The #7 Toyota of Alexander Wurz, Stéphane Sarrazin and Mike Conway, who stepped in for the absent Kazuki Nakajima, would be the filling in an Ingolstadt sandwich, as the #1 car would end up behind the second TS040. Both R18s suffered with software issues that compromised their full-throttle runs, giving Team Joest something to think about.
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