6 Hours of Bahrain – Another Toyota double, victory for the no.7

Pour la cinquième fois en autant de courses disputées cette saison, une Toyota a coupé victorieusement la ligne d’arrivée aux 6 Heures de Bahreïn. Sur le tracé de Sakhir, la voiture nº7 pilotée par le trio Mike conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Jose Maria López achieved its third success in a row, after the 6 Hours of Monza and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A little over two months after their coronation in Le Mans, the three drivers of the GR010 Hybrid knew how to manage their race perfectly to win with a strategy different from the number 8. Brendon Hartley had nevertheless done what was necessary the day before by taking pole position. However, the pit stop game allowed the championship leaders to win by going to the pits once less. In the general classification, Conway, Kobayashi and López therefore increase their lead over Hartley, Kazuki Nakajima et Sébastien Buemi. Alpine (Black, Stone, Vaxivière) finished this first event of the Bahraini double header on the third step, one round behind. A result which gives Toyota the first Manufacturers' title in the Hypercar category.

Only 10th on the grid (7th in qualifying in LM P2), Team WRT managed to come back to take the lead and cross the finish line as winner. A victory which gives the trio Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg, Charles Milesi first place in their category in the championship. With only one point behind JOTA before this weekend, the Belgian team was able to take advantage of the complicated start of the two British prototypes, despite being in pole position and third, to move ahead. Now ex-leaders, Sean Gelael, Stoffel Vandoorne and Tom Blomqvist nevertheless managed to limit the damage by taking second place in LM P2 this Saturday. The start of the last quarter of an hour of the race rewarded us with a high-flying duel between the Portuguese Filipe Albuquerque (United Autosports) and Antonio Felix da Costa (JOTA) for the last place on the podium, which ultimately returned to second duettist. Racing Team Nederland (van Eerd, van der Garde, van Uitert), one time leader of the LM P2 peloton after an excellent start by Giedo van der Garde, won in Pro-Am.

In the words of my friend @HulkHulkenberg: “See ya!” Loved the start here in Bahrain: P6 -> P1. 🎥: @FIAWEC pic.twitter.com/hm2MglPRbA

- Giedo van der Garde (@GvanderGarde) October 30, 2021

Porsche et Aston Martin alone in the world

There was hardly any suspense in GT. In LMGTE Pro, the two Porsche 911 RSR – 19s drove together throughout the race, with the #92 of Kévin Estre and Neel Jani winning ahead of the #91 of Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz. A great accounting operation for the Franco-Swiss duo, because Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado (AF Corse nº51), penalized by the BoP, have never been on the pace of the German cars.

As for LMGTE Am, the first minutes saw a fierce battle between Rino Mastronadi (Iron Lynx nº60 with Andrea Piccini and Matteo Cressoni) and Francesco Castellacci (AF Corse nº54 with Thomas Flohr and Giancarlo Fisichella) for first place. The first was forced to go through the pits after contact and came out second to last. Tomonchu Fujii then allowed the Aston Martin number 777 of D'Station Racing to take the lead in the category, erasing Castellacci. The British car nevertheless lost parts and also tumbled to the depths of the ranking. First position finally went to another Aston Martin Vantage AMR, the number 33 of TF Sport (Ben Keating, Dylain Pereira, Felipe Braga) after the second hour of racing. The trio retained this place until the checkered flag with a sufficiently high pace not to be worried. The Porsche 911 RSR – 19 nº77 of Dempsey – Proton Competition (Ried, Evans, Campbell) took second place ahead of another Porsche, that of Team Project 1 (Perfetti, Cairoli, Pera).

Next and last meeting of the season WEC, Saturday November 6, still in the Bahraini desert, but at 8 a.m.

Find the rankings for the 6 Hours of Bahrain HERE