Qualifying report
WEC Bahrain
Bahrain WEC: Hartley beats Kobayashi to pole in Toyota 1-2
Brendon Hartley beat Kamui Kobayashi to pole position as Toyota locked out the front row for this weekend's Bahrain 6 Hours round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Gary Watkins
Edited: Oct 29, 2021, 11:58 PM
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Hartley claimed his first pole of the Hypercar era with a 1m47.049s aboard the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid.
That compared with the 1m47.447s from Kamui Kobayashi, who had topped the times in the second and third sessions of free practice in the #7 Toyota.
Both Toyotas set only one timed lap around a circuit known for its high tyre wear to save their allocation of Michelin rubber for the race.
"It's been a long time coming," said Hartley, who last claimed pole in the WEC at the Fuji round of the 2019/20 series when qualifying was an aggregate of the times of two drivers.
"It was close at Monza and I felt like I could have had the pole at Le Mans until I got traffic at the end of the lap.
"I made a mistake on my qually sim in FP3 here, so I built into the lap and had a really good sector three."
Andre Negrao was less than a second off the pace of the pole-winning Toyota aboard the solo Alpine A480-Gibson. The Brazilian ended up on a 1m48.003s set on his second flying lap, but had a quicker time deleted for a track limits infringement.
Tom Blomqvist claimed LMP2 pole for the JOTA team, which had led the way in each of the three practice session with its pair of Oreca 07 Gibsons.
He was quickest in the #28 Oreca on his first run courtesy of a 1m49.932s and then improved to a 1m49.885s after going out on for a second shot on a new set of tyres.
United Autosports driver Filipe Albuquerque trailed Blomqvist by half a second after the first runs, but ended up only a tenth shy of the pole with a 1m49.994s on a new set of tyres.
The second JOTA car ended up third in Antonio Felix da Costa's hands on 1m50.198s.
Loic Duval was was the quickest of the Pro/Am runners in fourth position aboard the TDS-run Realteam Oreca.
Porsche 1-2 in GTE Pro
#92 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR - 19: Kevin Estre, Neel Jani
Photo by: Porsche Motorsport
Porsche driver Kevin Estre claimed his third GTE Pro pole of the season by just three hundredths of a second from teammate Gianmaria Bruni.
Estre's 1m56.144s aboard the #92 Porsche 911 RSR compared with Bruni's 1m56.178s in the second of the Manthey-run cars.
Both Porsche drivers stayed out for a second lap but failed to improve.
Ferrari edged closer to Porsche than in free practice, Miguel Molina just shading Alessandro Pier Guidi.
Molina posted a 1m57.327s on his first flying lap in his AF Corse-run Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. That compared with the 1m57.573s set by Pier Guidi on his second lap in the championship-leading Ferrari.
Rino Mastronardi took GTE Am qualifying honours after being brought into the Iron Lynx WEC line-up for Bahrain.
The 2021 European Le Mans Series GTE champion with the Italian team took the pole ahead of Aston Martin driver Paul Dalla Lana.
Mastronardi set a 1m58.918s on his second lap, after losing his first to a track limits violation, which compared with Dalla Lana's 1m59.331s.
The six-hour race, the first of two back-to-back rounds at the Bahrain International Circuit that conclude the 2021 WEC, starts at 11am local time on Saturday.
The WEC 6 Hours of Bahrain will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv this Saturday. Click here for more information.
Bahrain 6 Hours - Qualifying results (Hypercar and LMP2):
Cla # Drivers Car Class Avg Time Gap 1 8 Sébastien Buemi
Kazuki Nakajima
Brendon Hartley
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid HYPERCAR 1'47.049 2 7 Mike Conway
Kamui Kobayashi
Jose Maria Lopez
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid HYPERCAR 1'47.447 0.398 3 36 Andre Negrao
Nicolas Lapierre
Matthieu Vaxiviere
Alpine A480 HYPERCAR 1'48.003 0.954 4 28 Sean Gelael
Stoffel Vandoorne
Tom Blomqvist
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.885 2.836 5 22 Philip Hanson
Fabio Scherer
Filipe Albuquerque
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.994 2.945 6 38 Roberto Gonzalez
Antonio Felix da Costa
Anthony Davidson
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'50.198 3.149 7 70 Esteban Garcia
Loic Duval
Norman Nato
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'50.559 3.510 8 34 Jakub Smiechowski
Renger van der Zande
Alex Brundle
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'50.658 3.609 9 29 Frits van Eerd
Giedo van der Garde
Job Van Uitert
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'50.942 3.893 10 20 Dennis Andersen
Anders Fjordbach
Robert Kubica
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'50.979 3.930 11 31 Robin Frijns
Ferdinand Habsburg
Charles Milesi
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'51.043 3.994 12 21 Henrik Hedman
Juan Pablo Montoya
Ben Hanley
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'51.312 4.263 13 44 Miro Konopka
Oliver Webb
Kush Maini
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'51.487 4.438 14 1 Sophia Flörsch
Beitske Visser
Gabriel Aubry
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'51.736 4.687 View full results
GTE results:
Cla # Drivers Car Class Avg Time Gap 1 92 Kevin Estre
Neel Jani
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE PRO 1'56.144 2 91 Gianmaria Bruni
Richard Lietz
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE PRO 1'56.178 0.034 3 52 Daniel Serra
Miguel Molina
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'57.327 1.183 4 51 Alessandro Pier Guidi
James Calado
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE PRO 1'57.573 1.429 5 60 Rino Mastronardi
Andrea Piccini
Matteo Cressoni
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 1'58.687 2.543 6 98 Paul Dalla Lana
Augusto Farfus
Marcos Gomes
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE AM 1'59.331 3.187 7 56 Egidio Perfetti
Matteo Cairoli
Riccardo Pera
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE AM 1'59.404 3.260 8 47 Roberto Lacorte
Giorgio Sernagiotto
Antonio Fuoco
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 1'59.410 3.266 9 54 Thomas Flohr
Francesco Castellacci
Giancarlo Fisichella
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 1'59.534 3.390 10 33 Ben Keating
Dylan Pereira
Felipe Fraga
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE AM 1'59.538 3.394 11 88 Khaled Al Qubaisi
Adrien de Leener
Julien Andlauer
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE AM 1'59.923 3.779 12 83 François Perrodo
Nicklas Nielsen
Alessio Rovera
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 2'00.263 4.119 13 77 Christian Ried
Jaxon Evans
Matt Campbell
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE AM 2'00.294 4.150 14 777 Satoshi Hoshino
Tomonobu Fujii
Andrew Watson
Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGTE AM 2'00.300 4.156 15 85 Rahel Frey
Sarah Bovy
Katherine Legge
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 2'00.457 4.313 16 86 Michael Wainwright
Benjamin Barker
Tom Gamble
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 LMGTE AM 2'00.939 4.795 17 57 Takeshi Kimura
Mikkel Jensen
Scott Andrews
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO LMGTE AM 2'01.877 5.733 View full results
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