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Bahrain WEC: Porsche's Jani/Lieb/Dumas lead first practice

The Porsche shared by World Endurance Championship leaders Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas topped the times in first practice for this weekend's series finale in Bahrain

Jani set the fastest time of the 90-minute session aboard the #2 Porsche 919 Hybrid with a 1m42.107s.

The time put the car three tenths up on the second-place Audi R18 e-tron quattro in which Loic Duval set a best lap of 1m42.450s.

The second Audi was less than tenth further back in third position on a 1m42.515s posted by Benoit Treluyer

Kamui Kobayashi took fourth in the Toyota TS050 HYBRID he shares with Stephane Sarrazin and Mike Conway, who are the only driver combination that can stop Jani, Dumas and Lieb from taking the title.

Timo Bernhard took fifth in the second Porsche, while the #5 Toyota was sixth in the hands of Kazuki Nakajima.

Fastest in LMP2 was the Signatech Alpine ORECA-Nissan 05 shared by Nicolas Lapierre, Stephane Richelmi and Gustavo Menezes, who sealed the class title at the previous WEC round at Shanghai.

Lapierre set a 1m50.966s to end up almost exactly two tenths up on Roberto Merhi, who has returned to the Manor ORECA line-up for this event.

Aston Martin blocked out the top spots in GTE Pro.

Darren Turner went quickest in class in the Vantage GTE he is sharing with Jonny Adam at this race with a 1m58.735s.

That put him nearly four tenths up on team-mate Marco Sorensen in the sister car.

Richard Lietz was third for the works-backed Proton Porsche squad, just in front of Davide Rigon in the best of the AF Corse Ferraris.

Emmanuel Collard was fastest in GTE Am for the AF Corse Ferrari team.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES:

Pos Class Driver Team Car Time Gap
1 LMP1 R.Dumas, N.Jani, M.Lieb Porsche Team Porsche 1m42.107s -
2 LMP1 L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 1m42.450s 0.343s
3 LMP1 M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer Audi Sport Team Joest Audi 1m42.515s 0.408s
4 LMP1 S.Sarrazin, M.Conway, K.Kobayashi Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 1m42.865s 0.758s
5 LMP1 T.Bernhard, M.Webber, B.Hartley Porsche Team Porsche 1m42.955s 0.848s
6 LMP1 A.Davidson, S.Buemi, K.Nakajima Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota 1m43.504s 1.397s
7 LMP1 M.Tuscher, D.Kraihamer, A.Imperatori Rebellion Racing Rebellion/AER 1m46.366s 4.259s
8 LMP1 S.Trummer, O.Webb, P.Kaffer ByKOLLES Racing Team CLM/AER 1m48.308s 6.201s
9 LMP2 G.Menezes, N.Lapierre, S.Richelmi Signatech Alpine Alpine/Nissan 1m50.966s 8.859s
10 LMP2 J.Canal, R.Gonzalez, R.Merhi Manor ORECA/Nissan 1m51.155s 9.048s
11 LMP2 R.Rusinov, R.Rast, A.Brundle G-Drive Racing ORECA/Nissan 1m51.213s 9.106s
12 LMP2 R.Gonzalez, F.Albuquerque, B.Senna RGR Sport by Morand Ligier/Nissan 1m51.581s 9.474s
13 LMP2 T.Dillmann, G.van der Garde, S.Gelael Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier/Nissan 1m51.631s 9.524s
14 LMP2 V.Petrov, K.Ladygin, V.Shaytar SMP Racing BR Engineering/Nissan 1m51.885s 9.778s
15 LMP2 D.Cheng, H-Pin Tung, P-L.Chatin Baxi DC Racing Alpine Alpine/Nissan 1m52.080s 9.973s
16 LMP2 M.Rao, R.Bradley, A.Lynn Manor ORECA/Nissan 1m52.506s 10.399s
17 LMP2 N.Minassian, M.Mediani, M.Aleshin SMP Racing BR Engineering/Nissan 1m52.648s 10.541s
18 LMP2 R.Dalziel, P.Derani, C.Cumming Extreme Speed Motorsports Ligier/Nissan 1m52.650s 10.543s
19 GTE Pro J.Adam, D.Turner Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m58.735s 16.628s
20 GTE Pro N.Thiim, M.Sorensen Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 1m59.123s 17.016s
21 GTE Pro R.Lietz, M.Christensen Dempsey Racing - Proton Porsche 1m59.420s 17.313s
22 GTE Pro D.Rigon, S.Bird AF Corse Ferrari 1m59.499s 17.392s
23 GTE Pro A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 1m59.772s 17.665s
24 GTE Pro G.Bruni, J.Calado AF Corse Ferrari 1m59.860s 17.753s
25 GTE Pro S.Mucke, O.Pla Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK Ford 2m00.371s 18.264s
26 GTE Am F.Perrodo, E.Collard, R.Aguas AF Corse Ferrari 2m01.550s 19.443s
27 GTE Am P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin 2m01.552s 19.445s
28 GTE Am P.Ragues, R.Taylor, R.Brandela Larbre Competition Chevrolet 2m01.811s 19.704s
29 GTE Am M.Wainwright, A.Carroll, B.Barker Gulf Racing Porsche 2m02.195s 20.088s
30 GTE Am K.Al Qubaisi, D.H.Hansson, P.Long Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing Porsche 2m02.237s 20.130s
31 GTE Am C.Ried, W.Henzler, J.Camathias KCMG Porsche 2m02.496s 20.389s


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