It took a while to get out of the
heavy traffic near the circuit and we didn't arrive until after the session had
just started and while we were walking from the overflow car park (a nuisance!),
Kamui Kobayashi set what would prove to be the pole time in an extraordinary
lack of 3:14.791, the fastest ever lap of Le Mans in qualifying. We had
dinner of sandwich Americain merguez again there but it was poorer than at
Mulsanne the previous night and a bit of a rip off actually...
Once again we set up our chairs this time on the
bank at Indianapolis, which had been such a welcome new addition in 2016. It was
still very warm, and I had brought with me a light jumper and trousers which I
put on a little later in the evening.
The second qualifying session didn't go exactly to
plan for the ACO or the teams. With only 20 minutes on the clock, the #33
Eurasia Ligier had a big off in the hands of Erik Maris, which brought out a red
flag and a delay until the session restarted at 8.10. The ACO then planned
to run the session through until 9.30, shortening the 'dinner break' between the
second and third sessions, however another red flag for the Panis Barthez Ligier
brought the second session to a premature end at 9.20.
