Incidents, penalties derail No. 83 Ferrari’s Hyperpole bid

Qualifying for the 24 Hours of Le Mans delivered shocks as the defending champions, the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, failed to advance to Thursday evening’s Hyperpole, and both factory Peugeot 9X8s also missed out after organisers reduced the Hypercar field from 18 cars to 15 for Hyperpole. The No. 93 Peugeot was set to start 16th, ahead of the No. 83 Ferrari and the No. 94 Peugeot, leaving several pre-race favourites outside the late shootout.

The No. 83’s elimination was traced to on-track incidents and penalties. Phil Hanson ran off at Tertre Rouge and was penalised for track-limits breaches, a combination that cost the crew a lap and Hyperpole contention. During earlier running Yifei Ye hit the tyre wall at Mulsanne in the #83 and Robert Kubica received a five-minute stop-go penalty in FP1 for repeated track-limit infringements. Frédéric Makowiecki also damaged the #36 Alpine in FP1, and in the qualifying session others suffered late errors, notably Fred Poordad running off at the chicanes and losing his Hyperpole chance.

Ferdinand Habsburg topped Hypercar qualifying in the #35 Alpine with a 3:23.135 lap, 0.013 seconds quicker than Louis Delétraz’s time in the #12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac, with Jordan Taylor third and René Rast the fastest BMW in fourth. Sébastien Bourdais was fifth, giving Cadillac three of the top five positions. The Le Mans‑debuting Genesis GMR‑001s qualified 11th and 13th for Dani Juncadella and Pipo Derani, while the factory Ferraris sat 14th and 15th. In the support classes Doriane Pin led LMP2 and Peter Dempsey topped LMGT3, and four LMP2 entries — No.44 Proton Competition, No.25 Algarve Pro Racing, No.48 RD Limited and No.4 DKR Engineering — failed to make Hyperpole.