WEC Bahrain 6 Hours: #7 Toyota eases to victory, WRT win in LMP2
The #7 Toyota crew of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez has moved closer to winning the World Endurance Championship title after dominating the 6 Hours of Bahrain.
Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez, who also won August's Le Mans 24 Hours, led home the sister #8 crew of Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley for a Toyota 1-2 after a relatively uneventful race in the desert.
Buemi started the race from the front after Hartley secured pole on Friday, but the #7 car soon proved to have the upper hand on pace and tyre wear.
With the Bahrain International Circuit only having one medium to high-speed left-hander, Toyota decided to only change the left-hand side tyres where possible to reduce pitstop times.
The drivers of the #8 car appeared to struggle more with wear, however, and when the car appeared in the lead after the first pitstop cycle it was ordered to let the quicker #7 car through. The #8 crew lost another 17 seconds in the second half of the race due to a slow stop.
Kobayashi led the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid across the line with a 50-second lead over Nakajima's #8 car, taking the third consecutive Bahrain win for the #7 entry.
Toyota also officially secured its teams' world title, while Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez will head into next weekend's season finale at the same venue as the title favourites.
The only remaining Hypercar entry, the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson of Nicolas Lapierre, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Andre Negrao, finished third one lap behind. As has been the case all season, its shorter stint lengths prevented the French manufacturer from mounting any sort of challenge on the Toyotas.
#31 Team WRT Oreca 07 - Gibson: Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg-Lothringen, Charles Milesi
Photo by: Adrenal Media
As usual the LMP2 class was the pick of the bunch, with an excellent battle between WRT, Jota and United Autosports livening up the race.
The Le Mans-winning #31 WRT ORECA of Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi led early on after Frijns drove to the front from seventh on the grid.
They were soon challenged by the #22 United ORECA of Filipe Albuquerque, Phil Hanson and Fabio Scherer, while the #28 Jota ORECA of Stoffel Vandoorne, Tom Blomqvist and Sean Gelael also recovered from a nightmare start to slot back into the top three.
In the polesitting car, Gelael dropped from first to fifth on the first lap and then lost further ground after a spin, but after two hours the entry was back in the hunt.
Vandoorne and Blomqvist worked the #28 back up to second as United's challenge faded in the final third, but Jota was unable to prevent the Belgian WRT outfit from winning its second WEC race on the bounce and taking the LMP2 championship lead.
Blomqvist finished second one minute behind Frijns, while the second of the Jota entries, the #38 car of Antonio Felix da Costa, Anthony Davidson and Robert Gonzalez passed United's Albuquerque to finish third a further 15 seconds in arrears.
Behind Albuquerque, the #29 Racing Team Nederland ORECA of Giedo Van der Garde, Job van Uitert and Frits van Eerd took the Pro/Am honours after Van der Garde briefly led the opening stint thanks to another trademark rocket start.
Porsche 1-2 in GTE Pro
#92 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR - 19: Kevin Estre, Neel Jani, #91 Porsche GT Team Porsche 911 RSR - 19: Gianmaria Bruni, Richard Lietz
Photo by: Adrenal Media
In a depleted four-car GTE Pro class, the two works Porsches easily had the measure of the AF Corse Ferraris.
The #92 Porsche GTE 911 RSR-19 of Kevin Estre and Neel Jani led all race, with the #91 entry of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz comfortably slotting in behind into second and running in close formation.
That caused some angst in the Porsche garage as Lietz asked the team if he was allowed to pass, but the Austrian was told to hold station as both cars were conserving tyres.
In the #51 Ferrari GTE 488 Evo, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado took a distant third place over 35s behind, beating their stablemates Daniel Serra and Miguel Molina in the #52 car.
Estre and Jani also took over the GTE Pro championship lead from Le Mans winners Pier Guidi and Calado.
The TF Sport Aston Martin of Felipe Fraga, Dylan Pereira and Ben Keating edged a hard-fought GTE Am battle.
Aboard the #33 Aston, Fraga was hounded in the closing stages by the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche of Matt Campbell and the Team Project 1 Porsche of Matteo Cairoli but sealed the win to give TF Sport a chance to challenge the #83 AF Corse crew to the title in the season finale.
The 2021 WEC season will reach its conclusion next weekend at the same venue with the Bahrain 8 Hours.
The WEC 6 Hours of Bahrain will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv. Click here for more information.
WEC 6 Hours of Bahrain - Race Results (185 laps)
| Cla | Drivers | Car | Class | Time | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |  Mike Conway  Kamui Kobayashi  Jose Maria Lopez |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | - | |
| 2 |  Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima  Brendon Hartley |
Toyota GR010 - Hybrid | HYPERCAR | 51.401 | 51.401 |
| 3 |  Andre Negrao  Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere |
Alpine A480 | HYPERCAR | 1 lap | |
| 4 |  Robin Frijns  Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 5 laps | |
| 5 |  Sean Gelael  Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'01.872 | 5 Laps |
| 6 |  Roberto Gonzalez  Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'16.299 | 5 Laps |
| 7 | Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'24.269 | 5 Laps |
| 8 | Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 7 laps | |
| 9 |  Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser Gabriel Aubry |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'23.995 | 7 Laps |
| 10 | Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 1'24.229 | 7 Laps |
| 11 |  Dennis Andersen Anders Fjordbach  Robert Kubica |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 2'52.324 | 8 Laps |
| 12 | Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 10 laps | |
| 13 | Kevin Estre Neel Jani |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE PRO | 11 laps | |
| 14 |  Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE PRO | 0.690 | 11 Laps |
| 15 | Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 35.824 | 11 Laps |
| 16 | Daniel Serra  Miguel Molina |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE PRO | 37.949 | 11 Laps |
| 17 |  Ben Keating  Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 13 laps | |
| 18 | Christian Ried  Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 5.553 | 13 Laps |
| 19 |  Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 8.663 | 13 Laps |
| 20 |  Paul Dalla Lana Augusto Farfus Marcos Gomes |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 25.811 | 13 Laps |
| 21 |  Miro Konopka Oliver Webb  Kush Maini |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 43.559 | 13 Laps |
| 22 | François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'28.032 | 13 Laps |
| 23 | Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 14 laps | |
| 24 | Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 22.167 | 14 Laps |
| 25 | Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Katherine Legge |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 24.765 | 14 Laps |
| 26 | Takeshi Kimura Mikkel Jensen Scott Andrews |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 15 laps | |
| 27 | Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 1'36.730 | 15 Laps |
| 28 | Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson |
Aston Martin Vantage AMR | LMGTE AM | 16 laps | |
| 29 | Rino Mastronardi Andrea Piccini Matteo Cressoni |
Ferrari 488 GTE EVO | LMGTE AM | 53.712 | 16 Laps |
| 30 |  Henrik Hedman  Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley |
Oreca 07 | LMP2 | 19 laps | |
| 31 |  Khaled Al Qubaisi Adrien de Leener Julien Andlauer |
Porsche 911 RSR - 19 | LMGTE AM | 28.620 | 19 Laps |
| View full results | |||||
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