How the #7 Toyota squad moved closer to clinching WEC's 2021 title
In the penultimate round of the 2021 World Endurance Championship, a better run of tyre wear for Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi brought the Toyota trio its third win from five events, as the #7 squad put one hand on the title. Here's how the first of the WEC's two Bahrain enduros played out
The two Toyotas were barely a second apart at the end of the opening stint of Saturday's Bahrain 6 Hours and had twice swapped positions in the laps leading up to their first stops. It looked like it was going to be another close one between the Japanese manufacturer's Le Mans Hypercars, but by the end of the following stint the die had been cast in the favour of championship-leading trio Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi.
Conway had dropped back behind Sebastien Buemi on his in-lap and then lost four seconds in the pits to Brendon Hartley, who'd taken over the sister car. 10 laps after the stops at which both Toyotas took left-side tyres only, the Brit was ahead and 20 laps later, when the two GR010 HYBRIDs came into the pits for the second time, he was more than a dozen seconds to the good.
Share Or Save This Story
Related video
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.