LE MANS, France _ BMW claimed its first pole position of the Hypercar Era during a controversial qualifying session involving Cadillac Racing for this weekend’s 94^th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

For the second consecutive year, Cadillac will start on the front row for the 24 Hours of Le Mans at the Circuit de la Sarthe in Le Mans, France. (Photo courtesy of Cadillac Racing)

Dries Vanthoor and the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 were awarded P1 at the expense of Jack Aitken and the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R. Aitken was quickest on the famed, 8.467-mile Circuit de la Sarthe but a penalty carried over from earlier in the week ultimately dropped the No. 38 to 10th on the grid. Seeking to secure back-to-back poles in the French endurance classic, Cadillac was penalized for not complying with a pit lane start procedure.

Qualifying at Le Mans was split into three sessions _ a 30-minute initial outing on Wednesday evening, followed by Hyperpole 1 and Hyperpole 2 on Thursday.

During each stage, the slowest cars in each of three Le Mans classes _ Hypercar, LMP2 and GT3 _ were eliminated. In the premier Hypercar class, Hyperpole 2 was a shootout among the 10 fastest cars. A different driver drove each car during each of the three sessions, with a crew of three drivers per car for the only 24-hour race on the FIA’s World Endurance Championship (WEC) calendar.

With darkness falling at Le Mans, Vanthoor set the pace Thursday evening in the No. 15 BMW. The Belgian laid down the first of his three flying laps at 3-minutes, 22.745-seconds before improving to 3:22.564-seconds on his third tour. That appeared to have secured pole when Will Stevens wheeled the No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R into provisional second place at 3-minutes, 23.0780-seconds _ 0.5-seconds adrift.

Aitken then changed the night’s story line. With the checkered flag waving, the 30-year-old Brit of South Korean descent climbed from provisional ninth place to first with a stunning final lap in the No. 38 Cadillac. Aitken’s time of 3:22.559-seconds featured a huge gain in the circuit’s final sector, pushing him just ahead of Vanthoor, who is co-driving with Kevin Magnussen of Denmark and Swiss-born Italian Raffaele Marciello.

“It was a super-tight quali,” Aitken told The Athletic afterward. “We came together really well to get the car ready for today and improve it day by day. It’s always tough to know where you are in the test sessions before the hot stuff starts, but the car felt amazing.”

But as Aitken and teammates Earl Bamber of New Zealand and Le Mans native Sebastien Bourdais began celebrating their podium, race officials announced the No. 38 entry had been stripped of P1 and demoted down the order. The official explanation was that Aitken had been sent out into the pit lane too early _ before the start of Hypercar 2 _ a violation of WEC rules.

“Yeah, unfortunately, the lap was deleted due to a procedural error,” Aitken said. “However, it does show that we had fantastic pace to be quickest, third-quickest and three Cadillacs all in the Hyperpole 2. And, you know, even if we don’t get to start in the pole position, we’re still going to work our way through on the weekend and have shown that we have great pace.

“The car felt really, really strong. The guys did an amazing job to just improve it step-by-step over the last couple of days. And yeah, to put a lap together like that is always something kind of special and even more at a track like this. So, it was very enjoyable for the 20 minutes that I had the pole. And even now it’s still, you know, still a cool lap to have done.”

With P1 lost, Cadillac settled for a front row start for the second consecutive year courtesy of Stevens, who is sharing the No. 12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R with Louis Deletraz of Switzerland and Norman Nato of France.

“It was a good day for the team,” Stevens said. “Thank you to everyone who has been involved in improving the package compared to last year. We know we are in a better position. It’s going to be a very exciting race, and I think it will be a battle. It was a good effort by the team and now we need to have a good rest and get ready for the race.”

Filipe Albuquerque, co-driving the No. 101 Cadillac WTR V-Series.R for Wayne Taylor Racing with brothers Ricky and Jordan Taylor of Central Florida, posted the fifth-best time of 3-minutes, 23.778-seconds.

“I think it’s still good _ P5 for a 24-hour race, especially at Le Mans,” said Albuquerque, a 40-year-old native of Portugal whose international resume features overall wins at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona in 2018 and 2021. “Staying out of trouble is the most important thing here. We have great cars. I think we just did a not-ideal strategy. We went with a medium compound (Michelin tire) when everyone else was on softs. We keep learning. I guess we are the only outliers from WEC. They know how to choose between tires, I guess. So, we keep learning.

“But I’m happy with the car, with the team. They did great qualifying with top-five. And again, the race is long. We have a fast car, so no mistakes for now.”

Qualifying in LMP2 was paced by the No. 29 Oreca 07-Gibson of Forestier Racing by Panis entry shared by Frenchmen Louis Rousset and Esteban Masson and Oliver Gray of Great Britain in 3-minutes, 32.855-seconds.

LMGT3 qualifying was paced by the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 of Heart Of Racing shared by British-American Ian James, Zacharie Robichon of Canada and Mattia Drudi of Italy via a hot lap of 3-minutes, 52.433-seconds.

Meanwhile, all four Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs entered _ the largest group of Corvettes at Le Mans in 10 years _ will start in the back half of the 25-car LMGT3 grid.

Native Texan Ben Keating is sharing the No. 33 Corvette with factory driver Nicky Catsburg of Belgium. “It’s my first race of the WEC season and it’s a double-points race,” said Keating, 54, a third-generation businessman/racer operating Keating Auto Group in Victoria, Texas. “I’d have to look back a really long way to see when the last time someone won the championship but did not win Le Mans. It hasn’t happened in the last five years or so. So if you asked me to choose, I would choose Le Mans.

“But I also want to win the championship for the No. 33 car for my co-drivers, for my team, for Corvette. Since I personally no longer have the opportunity to win the championship, I want to win Le Mans. And if we win Le Mans, I think that will put my teammates, my car, my team and my manufacturer all in the best spot to win the championship.”

Catsburg said the balance of the No. 33 Corvette improved noticeably from Wednesday to Thursday. “If that means we are a bit slower, all we can do is find a nice car to drive and deal with it,” Catsburg said. “I have all the trust in the world in the team and in my engineer Tyler (Neff), who is also my engineer in IMSA. I can interfere but they are always smarter than I am. So, I’m just going to drive to create a balance that we all like, and I’m sure we will figure it out.”

The 24 Hours of Le Mans began at 10 a.m. (EDT)/ 4 p.m. (CEST) Saturday morning. Live, flag-to-flag broadcast coverage of the entire event is available on truTV in the United States. Live streaming coverage is available through a subscription on FIA WEC Plus with additional live streaming on the HBO Max app in the USA. Radio Le Mans also will provide live streaming audio coverage.