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 su🌄rvive 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 serio💎us damage.

Midway through qualifying one, Roberto Gonzalez appeared to spin at the Ford chicane entry a🐈nd 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 op🐽ening 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 c𒁃hampions #8 Toyota of Fernandꦕo 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 t🌸he Le Mans 24 Hours defꦰending 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 49.5꧋30s which saw off Nick Tan🅺dy in the #93 Porsche GT Team. That meant long-time leader #97 Aston Martin Racing was shuffled back to third.

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

I🔥n 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 whi🦹ch 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.