The #17 Pescarolo 01-Judd of Harold Primat, Christophe Tinseau and Benoit Treluyer set the tenth fastest overall time and the fourth quickest of the petrol-powered cars during the first qualifying session at Le Mans, having avoided the problems that befell the sister #16 car.
The car's best time of 3m 30.618s was 3.3secs faster than its best at the recent Official Test Day, and within touching distance of the leading petrol-fuelled LMP1 cars.
Primat started the session and set competitive times as he worked on the car's race set-up during a short seven lap stint. Tinseau then took over and continued the set up work before concentrating on setting a qualifying time at the end of the first part of the session. A time of 3m 30.914m was set on soft compound tyres and was bettered by three tenths of a second on qualifying rubber.
In the night time session all three drivers got behind the wheel, but Primat's time in the car was cut short by a session-ending red flag caused by a huge accident for the LMP2 Kruse Schiller Motorsport Lola Mazda.
“Unfortunately I didn't manage to complete my three compulsory night time laps due to the red flag, so I'll have to get those done on Thursday, but apart from that we're looking ok,” he said. “We've got good straight line speed and our time is closer to the Audis than we expected.
“The important thing is to have a car which is reliable, as well as comfortable for all three drivers, and I think we've managed that. It's a case of so far so good.”
The #16 car was left needing work overnight after Romain Dumas went off into the wall on oil dropped by the Team Modena Aston Martin but was still the quickest petrol car in seventh overall.
