LE MANS, France -- Fernando Alonso's Toyota squad will start the Le Mans 24 Hours from pole position.
Having topped the timesheets in the initial qualifying session on Wednesday night, the No.8 team extended its advantage over the other Toyota car to exactly two seconds on Thursday when Kazuki Nakajima set a 3:15.377. That was just 0.5s off the lap record Toyota set at Le Mans last year.
Having featured earlier in the day, Alonso got into the car with an hour remaining of the third and final qualifying session. Earlier this week the two-time world champion stated his desire to maximise his experience of night-time running ahead of the race itself.