Kevin Magnussen: “Surprise” BMW pace offers real shot at Le Mans pole

Ex-Formula 1 driver Kevin Magnussen believes BMW has a chance at scoring pole position for the 24 Hours of Le Mans after being pleasantly “surprised” by its pace in first qualifying.

Dries Vanthoor set the second-quickest time in the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 he shares with Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello in Wednesday’s opening segment of qualifying, just 0.040s down on the chart-setting No. 12 Jota Cadillac V-Series.R of Alex Lynn.

The other factory BMW qualified by Robin Frijns finished eighth and also secured a safe passage into Hyperpole, which will decide the first 15 positions on the starting grid.

Asked by Crash.net if the qualifying results were a real reflection of the competitive order, Magnussen said: “I hope it's real. That's all I can say. It was a little bit surprising maybe for us, but then on the other hand it's Le Mans, it is a long lap.

“Sometimes you think, ‘Oh we're six tenths behind or we're a second behind’ and you think that's a long way off, but actually equivalent on a different track, it's two tenths or something.

“It can swing around quite a bit here and a clean lap, a good lap can be easily half a second, one second.”

Pressed further if a pole position is possible for BMW on Thursday, 12 months after Dries Vanthoor topped the opening qualifying, Magnussen said: “I can only judge from that [qualifying] and looking at that [it] should be possible.

“He did a very, very good lap yesterday, so we hope. All the others also did a very, very good lap. But we'll have to wait and see.”

BMW has been rapid in qualifying this season, having scored four consecutive pole positions at the start of the season in the IMSA SportsCar Championship and regularly qualifying near the front in the World Endurance Championship.

However, BMW has not quite been able to convert that one-lap pace into top results in races, leaving the German manufacturer chasing a first victory of 2025.

Magnussen admitted that BMW has squandered some opportunities to win races this year, but is confident the team can put everything together at Le Mans.

“We've had more speed in the car than the results [show],” he explained. “I think we feel we missed some opportunities to probably win some races.

“In Daytona, we really feel like we should have won that with the pace we had in the car = that was a missed one.

“And there were a couple of other times where I think we didn't probably execute the best we could. But we have more chances and this is the biggest one, so this is the one where we really want to get it right.”

Asked if a first win of 2025 must be coming for BMW, the Dane replied: “Oh it's coming, for sure.”