Jack Aitken puts #38 JOTA Cadillac on Le Mans pole by 0.005s

Jack Aitken put the #38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac on pole for the 24 Hours of Le Mans, posting a 3:22.559 Hypercar-class course record in Hyperpole 2 and edging BMW’s Dries Vanthoor by 0.005 seconds. Aitken, who was filling in for the injured Alex Lynn, produced a late final-sector charge to leapfrog Vanthoor, whose #15 BMW recorded a 3:22.564. The 0.005-second gap was the smallest between the top two qualifiers in Le Mans history, underscoring how finely balanced the Hypercar field has been this week.

The Hyperpole shootout was intensely close across multiple sessions. Earlier runs produced different provisional leaders, including Charles Milesi’s brief Hyperpole 1 top time of 3:23.018 and Ferdinand Habsburg’s 3:23.135 reported as the fastest lap of the week in earlier qualifying. The format used a revised two-stage Hyperpole that cut the Hypercar field from 15 to 10 and required timed driver swaps, and sector performance proved decisive in the final order. Several high-profile entries, including both Toyota cars, the sister #36 Alpine, the #50 Ferrari and the #007 Aston Martin, did not progress to the final Hyperpole 2 shootout.

Will Stevens qualified the sister #12 JOTA Cadillac third with a 3:23.078, António Félix da Costa put the #35 Alpine fourth, and Cadillacs claimed two of the top three grid positions. Aitken’s 3:22.559 improved on his own time from last year, and JOTA’s result gave the team a strong starting platform for the 24-hour race as Hypercar qualifying continued to produce exceptionally small margins.