LE MANS, France — In the game that is qualifying at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Porsche team celebrated its return the Circuit de la Sarthe by posting the top time of qualifying after running three or four seconds off the pace set by World Endurance Championship (WEC) series leader Toyota during the free practice earlier in the day.

The No. 20 Porsche driven by Mark Weber, Timo Bernhard, and Brendon Hartley toured the track in 3:23.157 for top time Wednesday evening. The No. 14 Porsche 919 Hybrid was second fastest .771 seconds behind the leaders while the Toyotas were another two seconds off the pace in the third and fourth positions.

During the free practice Loic Duvall in the No. 1 Audi e-tron quattro, the defending Le Mans and WEC champion, crashed hard at the Porsche Curves. Duvall was alert and talking and was taken to the medical center at the track before being transported to hospital in Le Mans.

His status, considered satisfactory, will not allow him to take part in the 82nd edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Saturday June 14th and Sunday June 15th. Medical representatives submitted a report to the marshals disallowing him from racing after the accident he experienced.

Marc Gené, Audi reserve driver, entered until now in the No. 38 Zytek Z11SN-Nissan, has been authorized by the college of marshals to join the No. 1 Audi driver line-up as of tomorrow. At the same time, the college authorized the Jota Sport team to replace him with the Brit, Oliver Turvey as of tomorrow. Turvey will proceed with all administrative verifications before taking his place in the No. 38 Zytek during Thursday’s session.

Gene has been part of the Audi Le Mans squad since 2011, completed several track tests with the current Audi R18 e-tron quattro and was originally planned to run in the Le Mans 24 Hours in an LMP2 sports car of the JOTA team.
Also, following the incident, the No. 1 Audi chassis was reduced to rubble. Audi Sport Team Joest presented a request to the technical marshals to be able to use a new tub, and presented this to the marshalls. They gave their authorization for Audi Sport Team Joest to rebuild the No. 1 car around this new tub. The team will present it tomorrow for technical inspection.

The first qualifying session, scheduled for two hours, lasted but 50 minutes due to other accidents the caused the red flag to come out yet again.

“That’s why the lap times we saw tonight are not very conclusive,” said Head of Audi Motorsport Dr. Wolfgang Ullrich. “Marcel (Fässler) set a time in free practice that was two seconds below his qualifying time. Our cars aren’t optimally gripping to the track yet and have more potential than we were able to show today due to the special circumstances. The starting order will no doubt change again tomorrow. But the most important thing for the time being is that Loïc (Duval) is more or less well and can celebrate his 32nd birthday on Thursday.”

Results Qualifying 1
1 Bernhard/Hartley/Webber (Porsche) 3m 23.157s
2 Dumas/Jani/Lieb (Porsche) 3m 23.928s
3 Nakajima/Sarrazin/Wurz (Toyota) 3m 25.313s
4 Buemi/Davidson/Lapierre (Toyota) 3m 25.410s 
5 Fässler/Lotterer/Tréluyer (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) 3m 26.388s
6 Albuquerque/Bonanomi/Jarvis (Audi R18 e-tron quattro) 3m 26.445s
7 Belicchi/Kraihamer/Leimer (Rebellion-Toyota) 3m 33.117s
8 Beche/Heidfeld/Prost (Rebellion-Toyota) 3m 34.922s
9 Canal/Pla/Rusinov (Morgan-Nissan) 3m 38.843s
10 Chatin/Panciatici/Webb (Alpine-Nissan) 3m 39.490s