BMW inherits pole after Cadillac penalty at Le Mans
The grid for the 94th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans has been turned upside down. BMW will start from the top spot after Jack Aitken, who originally set a 3m22.559s in the #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA entry, saw his time scrubbed due to a penalty. That gives the front position to Dries Vanthoor and the #15 BMW M Team WRT car, who had trailed by a mere 0.005s. It is an absolute gut-punch for the Cadillac squad, but that is the cruel reality of top-level endurance racing.
In the LMGT3 class, the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage remains the machine to beat. Mattia Drudi secured his second consecutive pole here, outpacing the #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari of Alessio Rovera by just under a second. It is a stunning display of consistency from the team.
Meanwhile, the LMP2 grid saw its own dramatic shift. Esteban Masson went fastest in the #29 Forestier by Panis car with a 3m32.885s lap, but a penalty from Wednesday forces them to drop one spot. This hands the pole position to Job van Uitert in the #28 IDEC Sport entry, who was just 0.387s behind in the session. Before these final heroics, Charles Milesi led the initial Hypercar session with a 3m23.018s in the #35 Alpine A424.
