A blistering lap late on Wednesday evening from Christophe Bouchut earned French team Larbre Competition a stunning GT1 class pole position for this year’s Le Mans 24 Hours.
Bouchut, who won the world’s most famous motor race with Peugeot in 1993, set a superb time of 3:50.761 to jump to the top of the timesheets, and when rain fell during Thursday’s second session, the class pole was assured for the team’s 008 Aston Martin DBR9.
With the GT1 class set to be more competitive than ever at Le Mans this year, pole position represents an incredible performance for the team. Bouchut and team mates Casper Elgaard and Fabrizio Gollin will now start the race ahead of the works Corvette and Saleen cars, as well as the factory Aston Martin DBR9s run by Prodrive.
Team boss Jack Leconte was understandably delighted with the performance of his team. “It was a fantastic performance. To secure pole position in the face of such competition from well-run three factory teams is an incredible achievement. The two works Aston Martin’s were having some trouble in qualifying, so we were given the green light to challenge for the pole. We did everything we could to fly the flag for Aston Martin and are very proud of the result. Now we will see how the race unfolds for our two sister cars before we establish our race strategy. ”
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