Toyota, Porsche end day one on top in Bahrain
Toyota Racing was once again at the head of the time sheets, but this time it was the No.8 TS030 Hybrid of Davidson-Buemi-Sarrazin who set the benchmark with a lap of 1:44.516.
#8 Toyota Racing Toyota Ts030 - hybrid: Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi, Stéphane Sarrazin
Toyota Racing
Completed in the black of the night, as the final two thirds of Saturday’s 6 Hours of Bahrain will be, the second 90-minute free practice session has drawn to a close. Toyota Racing was once again at the head of the time sheets, but this time it was the No.8 TS030 Hybrid of Davidson-Buemi-Sarrazin who set the benchmark with a lap of 1:44.516, thanks to Swiss driver, Buemi. It wasn’t such a good session for the No.7 Toyota, as Lapierre had a brief visit to the gravel trap which caused the session to be stopped for him to be retrieved. Damage was minimal and the car continued to the chequered flag.
The order behind the leader was Audi-Toyota-Audi, with the No.1 showing the No.2 the upper hand. The gap between the four hybrid-powered cars was less than three tenths of a second – the anticipation for the race builds! Less than three seconds separated the factory entries from the No.12 Rebellion Racing Lola in fifth place overall.
In LMP2 Nicolas Minassian’s No.49 Michelin-shod Pecom Racing ORECA 03 Nissan edged out the No.35 OAK Racing Morgan Nissan by just 0.084 seconds. G-Drive Racing’s ORECA Nissan took third place in the category, followed by a fast-improving No.41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN-Nissan – its two new drivers Wolfgang Reip and Jon Lancaster quickly getting up to speed in the FIA WEC.
Porsche’s updated specification on its No.91 and 92 911 RSRs appears to be paying off as Richard Lietz became only the second man today to dip below the 2-minute barrier in LMGTE Pro. His time of 1:59.730 put the No.92 at the head of the class, in front of an Aston-Porsche-Aston sandwich – the championship leading No.97 being the first of the two Aston Martin Vantages in this train.
Ferrari’s LMGTE Pro entrants were split by the No.61 AF Corse Ferrari 458 of Emmanuel Collard, the Frenchman recording a lap time of 2:00.631 to head the LMGTE Am category. Behind him were the Danish-piloted No. 95 Aston Martin, Larbre Competition’s Corvette and the No.57 Krohn Racing Ferrari which made improvements in lap times before a late session incident with a prototype which is being investigated.
FIA WEC
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