Jack Aitken thought he had delivered the lap of his life. The former Formula 1 driver hauled his No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac to the top of the timesheet in the climactic Hyperpole shootout for the 94th 24 Hours of Le Mans, a 3m22.559s that edged Dries Vanthoor by five thousandths of a second. He was handed the pole position medal. Minutes later, it was taken back.
Aitken's fastest lap was deleted — not for track limits, but for a pit-lane infringement carried over from the start of the evening. He had moved from the working side of the pit lane into the fast lane before being instructed to, jumping ahead of the two Team WRT BMWs as the cars filed out for Hyperpole 2. The offence had been under investigation throughout the session and was only resolved after the Hyperpole ceremony was already underway.
The penalty handed pole to Vanthoor and the No. 15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, shared with Raffaele Marciello and former F1 racer Kevin Magnussen. It is BMW's first overall pole position at Le Mans in the Hypercar era, and the first of Vanthoor's career at La Sarthe. Aitken, meanwhile, was shuffled all the way down to 10th.
"That is a great surprise," Vanthoor said. "I am very happy to be on pole position for the first time in Hypercar. I take that, of course, but at the same time congratulations to Cadillac and Jack Aitken for putting on a great show. Overall, we at WRT can be extremely happy with the qualifying results. Now let's focus on the race."
Team WRT co-owner and CEO Vincent Vosse reacted within seconds of learning of the change, with both his BMWs promoted up the order.
"It's great to be, then, P1 and P4," Vosse said. "We are very happy for the team, it's a great achievement from BMW to provide us with a car. Thanks to Andreas (Roos, Head of BMW M Motorsport), he did everything. I mean, it doesn't mean a lot for the race, but it's a good start."
The 2026 Hyperpole format split the session in two. The opening 20-minute stage trimmed 15 cars to 10, with a different driver required in each phase. Charles Milesi produced the lap of the first segment, rocketing from the drop zone to top spot for Alpine, while both Toyota GR010 Hybrids were eliminated early — Kamui Kobayashi and Ryo Hirakawa will line up 14th and 15th. Less than 1.6 seconds covered all 15 cars.
Pole counts for little over 24 hours of flat-out racing. The 94th running of the great endurance classic gets underway this weekend.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/bmw-steals-le-mans-pole-as-penalty-drops-cadillac-to-10th). Visit for full coverage.*
