WEC Bahrain 6 Hours: Buemi leads Toyota 1-2 in first practice

The Swiss driver put in a fastest lap of 1m50.571s early in the 90-minutes session aboard the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID.

That put him four tenths up on the 1m50.972s set by Jose Maria Lopez in the sister car during Free Practice 1.

Toyota's times with its new-for-2021 Le Mans Hypercar were seven seconds off the pace of its LMP1 TS050 HYBRID in the first practice session at the Bahrain finale of the 2019/20 last November.

The solo Alpine-Gibson A480, the only other car competing in the Hypercar in the two Bahrain races this weekend and next weekend that close out the 2021 WEC, was a further tenth back in Nicolas Lapierre's hands on 1m51.098s.

The grandfathered LMP1 car was fourth overall behind the fastest LMP2 entry, the #38 Jota ORECA-Gibson 07.

Antonio Felix da Costa set a 1m51.083s early in the session to beat Realteam driver Loic Duval to top of the class order.

Duval's 1m51.212s aboard the Swiss entrant's TDS-run ORECA put him three tenths up on the second Jota entry in which Sean Gelael posted a 1m51.529s.

Racing Team Nederland ended up fourth in P2 with a 1m51.887s from Giedo van der Garde, while United Autosports driver Filipe Albuquerque was just over a tenth back in fifth.

Porsche claimed 1-2 in GTE Pro, a 1m57.983s from Richard Lietz yielding the top spot by eight tenths from Kevin Estre in the sister 911 RSR run by the factory Manthey team.

Estre's 1m58.785s was another eight tenths up on the best of the factory Ferrari 488 GTE Evos in the hands of Alessandro Pier Guidi.

His 2m00.330s was a second and a half quicker than team-mate Miguel Molina in the second of the two AF Corse-run cars.

Ferrari's lack of pace follows the release of a statement by the Italian marque in which it claimed that the changes to the GTE Pro Balance of Performance for this weekend were outside of the remit of the automatic system used in the class since 2017.

The Project 1 Porsche team led the way in GTE Am with Matteo Cairoli.

Best GTE Am Ferrari, the #83 AF-run car, was sixth and nearly two seconds off the class pace in the hands of factory driver Nicklas Nielsen.

The 488 GTE has been hit with a similar decrease in engine power in GTE Am as in the Pro class.

Practice resumes on Friday at 8:30am local time in Bahrain.

The qualifying for WEC 6 Hours of Bahrain will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv. Click here for more information. 

WEC Bahrain 6 Hours - FP1 results

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	8	Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'50.571
2	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'50.972	0.401
3	38	Roberto Gonzalez Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.083	0.512
4	36	Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere	Alpine A480	HYPERCAR	1'51.098	0.527
5	70	Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.212	0.641
6	28	Sean Gelael Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.529	0.958
7	29	Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.887	1.316
8	22	Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.995	1.424
9	31	Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'52.084	1.513
10	20	Dennis Andersen Anders Fjordbach Robert Kubica	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'52.280	1.709
11	1	Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'53.315	2.744
12	44	Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Kush Maini	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'53.501	2.930
13	21	Henrik Hedman Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'53.930	3.359
14	34	Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'54.484	3.913
15	91	Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	1'57.983	7.412
16	56	Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'58.177	7.606
17	92	Kevin Estre Neel Jani	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	1'58.785	8.214
18	88	Khaled Al Qubaisi Adrien de Leener Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'58.897	8.326
19	77	Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'59.328	8.757
20	33	Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'59.476	8.905
21	777	Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'59.722	9.151
22	83	François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'00.070	9.499
23	54	Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'00.084	9.513
24	47	Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'00.110	9.539
25	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	2'00.330	9.759
26	60	Rino Mastronardi Andrea Piccini Matteo Cressoni	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'00.623	10.052
27	98	Paul Dalla Lana Augusto Farfus Marcos Gomes	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	2'01.021	10.450
28	57	Takeshi Kimura Mikkel Jensen Scott Andrews	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'01.292	10.721
29	52	Daniel Serra Miguel Molina	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	2'01.899	11.328
30	85	Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Katherine Legge	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'01.964	11.393
31	86	Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	2'02.635	12.064
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