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Edition

Australia
Practice report

Bahrain WEC: Toyota tops red-flagged opening practice

Toyota led the way in the opening practice session of the Bahrain FIA World Endurance Championship season finale, which was interrupted by a lengthy stoppage for an oil spill.

#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

The 90-minute afternoon session was brought to a halt with 59 minutes remaining, when the #67 Ford GT of Harry Tincknell suffered an oil leak, eventually coming to a halt at Turn 5.

It took 36 minutes for the track to be cleaned for the session to resume, at which point it was decided to extend the session by a further half-hour to make up for the lost running.

An early lap of 1m42.313s for Mike Conway in the #7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid was good enough to top of the session by 0.109s from the sister #8 car, whose best time was set by Sebastien Buemi.

The two Porsche 919 Hybrids were third and fourth, with Neel Jani putting the #1 third with a 1m42.647s ahead of Timo Bernhard in the title-winning #2 car.

Nelson Piquet Jr led the LMP2 class with a best time of 1m48.707s in the #13 Rebellion Oreca.

LMP2 newcomer Loic Duval put the #26 G-Drive car in second, 0.022s further back, while Alex Brundle put the best of the Jota-run Jackie Chan DC Racing cars third.

The points-leading #31 Rebellion entry was slowest in class, almost two seconds slower than the sister car.

In GTE Pro, a 1m58.579s from championship leader Alessandro Pier Guidi put the #51 AF Corse Ferrari on top by just over three tenths from the best of the Aston Martins, the #97 of Jonathan Adam.

After its oil leak, the #67 Ganassi-run Ford GT recovered to take third in class with Tincknell at the wheel, helped by the session being extended.

In fifth was the best of the Porsches was the #91 of Richard Lietz, who along with Frederic Makowiecki lies just two points behind Pier Guidi and James Calado in the race for the GTE Pro drivers' title.

Porsche topped the GTE Am division courtesy of Matteo Cairoli, who set a best time of 2m00.428s in the #77 Dempsey Proton car.

Practice results:

Pos.#DriversCarClassTimeGap
1 7 japan Kamui Kobayashi 
united_kingdom Mike Conway 
argentina Jose Maria Lopez 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'42.313  
2 8 united_kingdom Anthony Davidson 
japan Kazuki Nakajima 
switzerland Sébastien Buemi 
Toyota TS050 Hybrid LMP1 1'42.512 0.199
3 1 germany Andre Lotterer 
switzerland Neel Jani 
united_kingdom Nick Tandy 
Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'42.647 0.334
4 2 germany Timo Bernhard 
new_zealand Brendon Hartley 
new_zealand Earl Bamber 
Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1 1'42.813 0.500
5 13 brazil Nelson Piquet Jr. 
denmark David Heinemeier Hansson
switzerland Mathias Beche 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.707 6.394
6 26 france Loic Duval 
russia Roman Rusinov 
france Leo Roussel 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'48.729 6.416
7 37 china David Cheng 
france Tristan Gommendy 
united_kingdom Alex Brundle 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.083 6.770
8 36 france Nicolas Lapierre 
brazil Andre Negrao 
united_states Gustavo Menezes 
Alpine A470 LMP2 1'49.107 6.794
9 24 france Jean-Eric Vergne 
united_kingdom Ben Hanley 
united_kingdom Matt Rao 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.272 6.959
10 28 france François Perrodo 
france Emmanuel Collard 
france Matthieu Vaxiviere 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.730 7.417
11 38 united_kingdom Oliver Jarvis 
china Ho-Pin Tung 
france Thomas Laurent 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'49.854 7.541
12 25 russia Vitaly Petrov 
switzerland Simon Trummer 
mexico Roberto Gonzalez 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'50.041 7.728
13 31 brazil Bruno Senna 
france Julien Canal 
france Nicolas Prost 
Oreca 07 LMP2 1'50.467 8.154
14 51 united_kingdom James Calado 
italy Alessandro Pier Guidi 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 1'58.579 16.266
15 97 united_kingdom Darren Turner 
united_kingdom Jonathan Adam 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE PRO 1'58.901 16.588
16 67 united_kingdom Harry Tincknell 
guernsey Andy Priaulx 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'59.413 17.100
17 66 germany Stefan Mücke 
france Olivier Pla 
Ford GT LMGTE PRO 1'59.457 17.144
18 91 austria Richard Lietz 
france Frédéric Makowiecki 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'59.510 17.197
19 92 denmark Michael Christensen 
france Kevin Estre 
Porsche 911 RSR LMGTE PRO 1'59.657 17.344
20 95 denmark Marco Sorensen 
denmark Nicki Thiim 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE PRO 2'00.006 17.693
21 77 germany Christian Ried 
italy Matteo Cairoli 
germany Marvin Dienst 
Porsche 911 RSR (991) LMGTE AM 2'00.428 18.115
22 71 united_kingdom Sam Bird 
italy Davide Rigon 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE PRO 2'00.473 18.160
23 98 portugal Pedro Lamy 
canada Paul Dalla Lana 
austria Mathias Lauda 
Aston Martin Vantage LMGTE AM 2'00.553 18.240
24 86 united_kingdom Michael Wainwright 
united_kingdom Ben Barker 
united_kingdom Nick Foster 
Porsche 911 RSR (991) LMGTE AM 2'00.947 18.634
25 61 ireland Matt Griffin 
singapore Mok Weng Sun 
japan Keita Sawa 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'01.572 19.259
26 54 italy Francesco Castellacci 
spain Miguel Molina 
switzerland Thomas Flohr 
Ferrari 488 GTE LMGTE AM 2'01.680 19.367

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