Nico Hulkenberg will start his Le Mans 24 Hours debut from third on the grid after Porsche dominated qualifying.
Hulkenberg, driving alongside Nick Tandy and Earl Bamber in the #19 car, qualified within two seconds of the pole time set by Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas. The Force India driver signed for Porsche to drive in two World Endurance Championship (WEC) rounds this year. He competed at Spa in May and is alternating F1 duties with Le Mans this weekend as it falls between races in Austria and Britain.
Former Red Bull driver Mark Webber will start second, with the #17 Porsche he shares with Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley 0.880s off pole. Audi occupies the next three slots on the grid. Defending Le Mans winner Andre Lotterer, who raced for Caterham at Spa last year, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler start fifth.
Ex-Marussia driver Max Chilton will start his first Le Mans from down in 13th position, after Nissan's radical LMP1 continued to struggle. Chilton is sharing his drive with Jann Mardenborough and Olivier Pla.
Qualifying was ended prematurely because of a heavy shunt for Jan Magnussen, father of McLaren reserve Kevin. His son would later tweet that he was uninjured:
Dad is ok. Car took a big hit though, but the @CorvetteRacing guys are awesome so fingers crossed they can fix it! #hopefull
— Kevin Magnussen (@KevinMagnussen) June 11, 2015The race begins at 1500 local time on Saturday.