Le Mans pole for BMW!

Thursday's Hyperpole shootout ended with BMW on pole position for the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours thanks to Dries Vanthoor (#15 M Hybrid V8) who, in the process, established a new Hypercar-era lap record for the French track (3m22.564s). The #38 Cadillac had concluded the session on top but its best lap was later disallowed by the stewards.

The 20-minute Hyperpole 1 session saw the 15 best cars from Wednesday's 'Qualifying' gather for the first phase of this evening's knock-out format. Charles Milesi went fastest with a late effort of 3m23.018s in the #35 Alpine A424, ahead of the #38 Cadillac (Earl Bamber). The incredible #17 Genesis was third in the hands of Mathys Jaubert who was only dislodged from top-spot in the dying moments.

All the Hypercars were fitted with soft MICHELIN Pilot Sport Endurance slicks, with the exception of the Ferrari 499Ps which started out on mediums.

The top-ten prototypes then reconvened for Hyperpole 2, without the two Toyotas, the #36 Alpine, #007 Aston Martin and #50 Ferrari which all failed to make the cut.

The finale kicked off at 9:42pm, with the track temperature standing at 23°C. The three Cadillacs, two BMWs, two Genesis, Alpine, Ferrari and Aston Martin all left the pits on soft slicks. Dries Vanthoor took advantage of the outstanding warm-up performance of his MICHELIN Pilot Sport Endurance tires to bank an early effort of 3m22.745.

The Belgian then improved with a 3m22.564s, narrowly beating the previous Le Mans Hypercar track record posted by Cadillac's Jack Aitken in 2025.

For some time, it seemed it would be the #38 Cadillac V-Series.R that would start the weekend's race from the front of the grid when Jack Aitken went slightly better with a 3m22.559s. However, that time was deleted by the stewards after the session had finished due to a procedure infringement.