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Practice report

Bahrain WEC: Toyota completes sweep of Thursday practices

Toyota maintained its edge over Porsche in the second free practice session for the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season in Bahrain.

#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050-Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez

#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TS050-Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria Lopez

JEP / Motorsport Images

As in the first session, all the best times were set early on, with the cooler temperatures of the evening ensuring that laptimes were comfortably quicker than in the afternoon.

Mike Conway's FP1 benchmark of 1m42.313s was beaten straight away by Kazuki Nakajima, who put the #8 Toyota at the top of the times on a 1m40.095s.

Jose Maria Lopez was 0.598s slower in the sister #7 TS050 Hybrid, completing another one-two for the Japanese marque as it seeks a third successive WEC victory.

Best of the Porsche drivers was newly-signed Toro Rosso Formula 1 driver Brendon Hartley, who posted a 1m40.773s in the #2 919 Hybrid, a little over a tenth quicker than Nick Tandy's effort in the #1 car.

There was late drama for the #2 car however when it was placed under investigation at the end of the session when Earl Bamber and Leo Roussel made contact on-track at Turn 11.

In LMP2, the points-leading #31 Rebellion Oreca set the pace, Bruno Senna becoming the only driver in class to dip into the 1m47s with a best time of 1m47.664s.

Nelson Piquet Jr made it a Rebellion one-two in the #13 machine, six tenths slower than his compatriot, while best of the rest was Thomas Laurent in the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca.

Aston Martin locked out the top two places in GTE Pro division on the final race for its current-model Vantage, with Jonathan Adam putting the #97 car on top with a best time of 1m57.014s.

That was four tenths faster than Marco Sorensen could muster in the sister #95 car.

Ferraris were third and fourth, with Davide Rigon delivering the Italian marque's best laptime in the #71 car, ahead of the two Ganassi-run Ford GTs and the two Porsche 911 RSRs.

Leading the way in GTE Am was the Clearwater Racing-run Ferrari, thanks to a 1m59.773s lap from Matt Griffin.

Practice results:

Pos.#DriversCarClassTimeGap
1 8 united_kingdom Anthony Davidson 
japan Kazuki Nakajima 
switzerland Sébastien Buemi 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'40.095  
2 7 japan Kamui Kobayashi 
united_kingdom Mike Conway 
argentina Jose Maria Lopez 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'40.693 0.598
3 2 germany Timo Bernhard 
new_zealand Brendon Hartley 
new_zealand Earl Bamber 
Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'40.773 0.678
4 1 germany Andre Lotterer 
switzerland Neel Jani 
united_kingdom Nick Tandy 
Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'40.855 0.760
5 31 brazil Bruno Senna 
france Julien Canal 
france Nicolas Prost 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'47.664 7.569
6 13 brazil Nelson Piquet Jr. 
denmark David Heinemeier Hansson 
switzerland Mathias Beche 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.238 8.143
7 38 united_kingdom Oliver Jarvis 
china Ho-Pin Tung 
france Thomas Laurent 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.022 8.927
8 36 france Nicolas Lapierre 
brazil Andre Negrao 
united_states Gustavo Menezes 
Alpine A470 LMP2 1'49.029 8.934
9 26 france Loic Duval 
russia Roman Rusinov 
france Leo Roussel 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.083 8.988
10 28 france François Perrodo 
france Emmanuel Collard 
france Matthieu Vaxiviere 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.114 9.019
11 25 russia Vitaly Petrov 
switzerland Simon Trummer 
mexico Roberto Gonzalez 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.747 9.652
12 37 china David Cheng 
france Tristan Gommendy 
united_kingdom Alex Brundle 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.778 9.683
13 24 france Jean-Eric Vergne 
united_kingdom Ben Hanley 
united_kingdom Matt Rao 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'51.386 11.291
14 97 united_kingdom Darren Turner 
united_kingdom Jonathan Adam 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE PRO 1'57.014 16.919
15 95 denmark Marco Sorensen 
denmark Nicki Thiim 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE PRO 1'57.419 17.324
16 71 united_kingdom Sam Bird 
italy Davide Rigon 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'57.925 17.830
17 51 united_kingdom James Calado 
italy Alessandro Pier Guidi 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'58.356 18.261
18 67 united_kingdom Harry Tincknell 
guernsey Andy Priaulx 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'58.812 18.717
19 92 denmark Michael Christensen 
france Kevin Estre 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'58.871 18.776
20 91 austria Richard Lietz 
france Frédéric Makowiecki 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'59.148 19.053
21 66 germany Stefan Mücke 
france Olivier Pla 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'59.192 19.097
22 61 ireland Matt Griffin 
singapore Mok Weng Sun 
japan Keita Sawa 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 1'59.773 19.678
23 54 italy Francesco Castellacci 
spain Miguel Molina 
switzerland Thomas Flohr 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'00.205 20.110
24 98 portugal Pedro Lamy 
canada Paul Dalla Lana 
austria Mathias Lauda 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 2'00.525 20.430
25 86 united_kingdom Michael Wainwright 
united_kingdom Ben Barker 
united_kingdom Nick Foster 
Porsche 911 RSR (991) LMGTE AM 2'00.616 20.521
26 77 germany Christian Ried 
italy Matteo Cairoli 
germany Marvin Dienst 
Porsche 911 RSR (991) LMGTE AM 2'00.621 20.526

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