Bahrain WEC: Buemi leads Toyota 1-2 in first practice
Toyota driver Sebastien Buemi topped the times in opening free practice for this weekend's Bahrain 6 Hours FIA World Endurance Championship round.
The Swiss driver put in a fastest lap of 1m50.571s early in the 90-minutes session aboard the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid, four tenths up on the 1m50.972s set by Jose Maria Lopez in the sister #7 car.
Toyota's times with its new-for-2021 Le Mans Hypercar were seven seconds off the pace of its LMP1 TS050 in the first practice session at the Bahrain finale of the 2019/20 last November.
The solo Alpine A480, the only other car competing in the Hypercar in the two Bahrain races this weekend and next weekend that close out the 2021 WEC, was a further tenth back in Nicolas Lapierre's hands on 1m51.098s.
The grandfathered LMP1 car was fourth overall behind the fastest LMP2 entry, the #38 JOTA Oreca-Gibson 07.
Antonio Felix da Costa set a 1m51.083s early in the session to beat Realteam Racing driver Loic Duval to top of the class order.
Duval's 1m51.212s aboard the Swiss entrant's TDS-run Oreca put him three tenths up on the second JOTA entry in which Sean Gelael posted a 1m51.529s.
Racing Team Nederland ended up fourth in P2 with a 1m51.887s from Giedo van der Garde, while United Autosports driver Filipe Albuquerque was just over a tenth back in fifth.
Porsche claimed 1-2 in GTE Pro, a 1m57.983s from Richard Lietz yielding the top spot by eight tenths from Kevin Estre in the sister 911 RSR run by the factory Manthey team.
Estre's 1m58.785s was another eight tenths up on the best of the factory Ferrari 488 GTE Evos in the hands of Alessandro Pier Guidi.
His 2m00.330s was a second and a half quicker than teammate Miguel Molina in the second of the two AF Corse-run cars.
Ferrari's lack of pace follows the release of a statement by the Italian marque in which it claimed that the changes to the GTE Pro Balance of Performance for this weekend were outside of the remit of the automatic system used in the class since 2017.
The Project 1 Porsche team led the way in GTE Am with Matteo Cairoli.
Best GTE Am Ferrari, the #83 AF-run car, was sixth and nearly two seconds off the class pace in the hands of factory driver Nicklas Nielsen.
The 488 GTE has been hit with a similar decrease in engine power in GTE Am as in the Pro class.
Practice resumes on Friday at 8:30am local time in Bahrain.
WEC Bahrain 6 Hours - FP1 results
| Cla | # | Drivers | Car | Class | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 8 |  Sébastien Buemi  Kazuki Nakajima  Brendon Hartley | Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 1'50.571 | |
| 2 | 7 |  Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez | Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 1'50.972 | 0.401 |
| 3 | 38 |  Roberto Gonzalez  Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'51.083 | 0.512 |
| 4 | 36 |  Andre Negrao  Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere | Alpine A480 | HYPERCAR | 1'51.098 | 0.527 |
| 5 | 70 | Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'51.212 | 0.641 |
| 6 | 28 |  Sean Gelael  Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'51.529 | 0.958 |
| 7 | 29 |  Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'51.887 | 1.316 |
| 8 | 22 | Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'51.995 | 1.424 |
| 9 | 31 | Robin Frijns  Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'52.084 | 1.513 |
| 10 | 20 |  Dennis Andersen Anders Fjordbach  Robert Kubica | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'52.280 | 1.709 |
| 11 | 1 |  Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser Gabriel Aubry | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'53.315 | 2.744 |
| 12 | 44 |  Miro Konopka Oliver Webb  Kush Maini | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'53.501 | 2.930 |
| 13 | 21 |  Henrik Hedman  Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'53.930 | 3.359 |
| 14 | 34 | Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle | Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'54.484 | 3.913 |
| 15 | 91 |  Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE PRO | 1'57.983 | 7.412 |
| 16 | 56 |  Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 1'58.177 | 7.606 |
| 17 | 92 | Kevin Estre Neel Jani | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE PRO | 1'58.785 | 8.214 |
| 18 | 88 |  Khaled Al Qubaisi Adrien de Leener Julien Andlauer | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 1'58.897 | 8.326 |
| 19 | 77 | Christian Ried  Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 1'59.328 | 8.757 |
| 20 | 33 |  Ben Keating  Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga | Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 1'59.476 | 8.905 |
| 21 | 777 | Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson | Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 1'59.722 | 9.151 |
| 22 | 83 | François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 2'00.070 | 9.499 |
| 23 | 54 | Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 2'00.084 | 9.513 |
| 24 | 47 | Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 2'00.110 | 9.539 |
| 25 | 51 | Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 2'00.330 | 9.759 |
| 26 | 60 | Rino Mastronardi Andrea Piccini Matteo Cressoni | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 2'00.623 | 10.052 |
| 27 | 98 |  Paul Dalla Lana Augusto Farfus Marcos Gomes | Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 2'01.021 | 10.450 |
| 28 | 57 | Takeshi Kimura Mikkel Jensen Scott Andrews | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 2'01.292 | 10.721 |
| 29 | 52 | Daniel Serra  Miguel Molina | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 2'01.899 | 11.328 |
| 30 | 85 | Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Katherine Legge | Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 2'01.964 | 11.393 |
| 31 | 86 | Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble | Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 2'02.635 | 12.064 |
| View full results | ||||||
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