WEC Bahrain 6 Hours: Hartley pips Kobayashi in Toyota pole battle

Hartley claimed his first pole of the Hypercar era with a 1m47.049s aboard the #8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID.

That compared with the 1m47.447s from Kamui Kobayashi, who had topped the times in the second and third sessions of free practice in the #7 Toyota.

Both Toyotas set only one timed lap around a circuit known for its high tyre wear to save their allocation of Michelin rubber for the race.

"It's been a long time coming," said Hartley, who last claimed pole in the WEC at the Fuji round of the 2019/20 series when qualifying was an aggregate of the times of two drivers.

"It was close at Monza and I felt like I could have had the pole at Le Mans until I got traffic at the end of the lap.

"I made a mistake on my qually sim in FP3 here, so I built into the lap and had a really good sector three."

Andre Negrao was less than a second off the pace of the pole-winning Toyota aboard the solo Alpine-Gibson A480. The Brazilian ended up on a 1m48.003s set on his second flying lap.

Tom Blomqvist claimed LMP2 pole for the British Jota team, which had led the way in each of the three practice session with its pair of ORECA-Gibson 07s.

He was quickest in the #28 ORECA on his first run courtesy of a 1m49.932s and then improved to a 1m49.885s after going out on for a second shot on a new set of tyres.

#28 JOTA Oreca 07 - Gibson: Sean Gelael, Stoffel Vandoorne, Stoffel Vandoorne, Tom Blomqvist

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

United Autosports driver Filipe Albuquerque trailed Blomqvist by half a second after the first runs, but ended up only a tenth shy of the pole with a 1m49.994s on a new set of tyres.

The second Jota car ended up third in Antonio Felix da Costa's hands on 1m50.198s.

Loic Duval was was the quickest of the Pro/Am runners in fourth position aboard the TDS-run Realteam ORECA.

Porsche driver Kevin Estre claimed his third GTE Pro pole of the season by just three hundredths of a second from team-mate Gianmaria Bruni.

Estre's 1m56.144s aboard the #92 Porsche 911 RSR compared with Bruni's 1m56.178s in the second of the Manthey-run cars. Both Porsche drivers stayed out for a second lap but failed to improve.

Ferrari edged closer to Porsche than in free practice, Miguel Molina just shading Alessandro Pier Guidi.

Molina posted a 1m57.327s on his first flying lap in his AF Corse-run Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. That compared with the 1m57.573s set by Pier Guidi on his second lap in the championship-leading Ferrari.

Rino Mastronardi took GTE Am qualifying honours after being brought into the Iron Lynx WEC line-up for Bahrain.

#60 Iron Lynx Ferrari 488 GTE Evo: Rino Mastronardi, Andrea Piccini, Matteo Cressoni

Photo by: Ferrari

The 2021 European Le Mans Series GTE champion with the Italian team took the pole ahead of Aston Martin driver Paul Dalla Lana.

Mastronardi set a 1m58.918s on his second lap, after losing his first to a track limits violation, which compared with Dalla Lana's 1m59.331s.

The six-hour race, the first of two back-to-back rounds at the Bahrain International Circuit that conclude the 2021 WEC, starts at 11am local time on Saturday.

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

WEC 6 Hours of Bahrain - Qualifying Results

Cla	Drivers	Class	Avg Time	Gap
1	Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley	HYPERCAR	1'47.049
2	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez	HYPERCAR	1'47.447	0.398
3	Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere	HYPERCAR	1'48.003	0.954
4	Sean Gelael Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist	LMP2	1'49.885	2.836
5	Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque	LMP2	1'49.994	2.945
6	Roberto Gonzalez Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson	LMP2	1'50.198	3.149
7	Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato	LMP2	1'50.559	3.510
8	Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle	LMP2	1'50.658	3.609
9	Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert	LMP2	1'50.942	3.893
10	Dennis Andersen Anders Fjordbach Robert Kubica	LMP2	1'50.979	3.930
11	Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi	LMP2	1'51.043	3.994
12	Henrik Hedman Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley	LMP2	1'51.312	4.263
13	Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Kush Maini	LMP2	1'51.487	4.438
14	Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser Gabriel Aubry	LMP2	1'51.736	4.687
View full results