- Who
- Kamui Kobayashi
- What
- 156.52 mile(s) per hour
- Where
- France (Le Mans)
- When
On 16 June 2017, Kamui Kobayashi (Japan) secured pole for the 2017 24 Hours of Le Mans in the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid with a qualifying lap completed at an average speed of 156.52 mph (251.89 km/h). He outstripped Hans Stuck’s 156.47-mph (251.81-km/h) pole lap for Porsche in 1985.
Kobiyashi’s lap time of 3 minutes 14.791 seconds was the quickest since chicanes were introduced to the Mulsanne Straight on the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1989, and more than two seconds faster than the previous post-1989 qualifying record of 3 minutes 16.887 seconds, set by Swiss driver Neel Jani in 2015.
The fastest lap of the Le Mans circuit in any layout is 3 minutes 13.90 seconds, achieved by Pedro Rodríguez (Mexico) in 1971.
