Le Mans 24 Hours 2026 starting grid after penalties
June 12, 2026
Ferdinand Habsburg carried Alpine to the top in first round of qualifying for the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours, while the No. 83 Ferrari 499P failed to make Thursday’s Hyperpole shootout.
Habsburg paced the No. 35 Alpine A424 to a last-lap of 3m23.135s, edging out Louis Delétraz in the No. 12 Cadillac Hertz Team Jota by just 0.013 seconds.
The biggest shock in Hypercar qualifying was the defending race-winning No. 83 Ferrari 499P AF Corse which wound up down 17th in the 18-car Hypercar field and completely eliminated from Thursday evening’s Hyperpole shootout.
Phil Hanson was just two-tenths clear of the danger zone at one stage, but then disaster struck when he made a late off on the approach to Tertre Rouge compounded by two track limits violations which left the privateer Ferrari unable to escape the dreaded drop zone.
The same fate was shared by the pair of Peugeot 9X8s, with Stoffel Vandoorne’s No. 93 Peugeot finishing 16th, just half a second faster than Hanson, while Malthe Jakobsen’s No. 94 finished dead last.
In a cruel twist of irony, the two factory Ferraris qualified for Hyperpole albeit by less than half a second, with Alex Fuoco and Nicklas Nielsen in the No. 50 finishing 14th and Antonio Pier Guidi and James Calado in the No. 51 taking 15th place.
Le Mans 24 Hours 2026 schedule: Start time, how to watch
Full Le Mans 24 Hours 2026 entry list
At the front, Jordan Taylor reinforced Cadillac’s strong form by finishing third behind the wheel of the No. 101 Wayne Taylor Cadillac V-Series.R, two-tenths down on Habsburg, followed by René Rast’s No. 20 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, Sébastien Bourdais’ No. 38 Jota Cadillac, and Kevin Magnussen’s No. 15 BMW, with the top six all within half a second.
WEC newcomer Genesis Magma Racing impressively got both of its GMR-001 prototypes through to Hyperpole 1, with Dani Juncadella in the No. 19 taking 11th and Pipo Derani in the No. 17 finishing 13th.
Doriane Pin dominates LMP2 Qualifying for Duqueine
The combined LMP2 and LMGT3 qualifying session saw Doriane Pin post the fastest lap for Team Duqueine, beating teenage sensation Ian Aguilera in the CLX Motorsport Oreca.
Pin paced the No. 30 Team Duqueine Oreca 07 Gibson to a time of 3m34.662s with 10 minutes left on the clock, ending up more than half a second clear of Aguilera in the No. 37 CLX Motorsport entry.
Bijoy Garg propelled the No. 343 Inter Europol Competition Oreca to third place towards the end of qualifying, followed by Louis Rousset in the No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis entry and Ryan Cullen in the No. 26 Vector Sport LMP2.
The top 15 LMP2 cars progressed to Thursday’s Hyperpole shootout, meaning that only four cars did not advance into the second part of Le Mans 24h qualifying, with those being the No. 16 Proton Competition Oreca which missed much of the opening practice, the No. 17 Algarve Pro entry, the No. 48 RD Limited, and the No. 3 DKR Engineering.
Peter Dempsey’s Corvette tops LMGT3 Qualifying, McLarens eliminated
In LMGT3, Peter Dempsey reprised his Imola heroics in the No. 34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette Z06 GT3.R to top the session with a 3m55.744s, ending up two-tenths of a second quicker than Eric Powell in the No. 77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang.
Gray Newell put the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in third place, followed by James Cottingham in the No. 91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, and completing the top five was Darren Leung in the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3.
Fifteen out of the 25 LMGT3 cars progressed into Hyperpole 1, with neither of the two Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3s making the cut. The No. 10 McLaren of Antares Ru was 17th quickest, while Alexander West ended up 23rd in the sister No. 58 entry.
