No surprises in FP2 in Bahrain

Given the Success Handicap in effect this weekend, it was surprising to see the Toyota TS050 Hybrid n°8 set the best time in the first free practice session for the 8 Hours of Bahrain yesterday. No. 7 of Conway-Kobayashi-Lopez set the record straight this morning by dominating the second session.

Buemi-Hartley-Nakajima thus conceded 1'147 to their stablemates, credited with a 1'42"857.

In third place overall, first in LM P2, we find the #07 Oreca 29 of Racing Team Nederland led by De Vries-Van der Garde-Van Eerd. The top three in the category is completed by theAlpine A470 n°36 from Laurent-Ragues-negrao and the No. 07 Oreca 22 from United Autosports (Di Resta-Albuquerque-Hanson).

In GTE Pro, Ferrari – although very behind yesterday – has risen to the top of the hierarchy. The No. 488 71 GTE Evo from Rigon-Molina preceded the sister car by 0”, the two Italians being separated by the Porsche 911 RSR-19 n°91, which is 0”229 behind the reference mark.

Aston Martin, who should win all the titles tomorrow, are slightly further behind, but without deploring a crippling deficit, especially at this stage of the meeting.

Finally, Porsche monopolizes the first three places in GTE Am with, in order, the No. 911 88 RSR from Dempsey-Proton Racing (Al Qubaisi-Holzer-Evans) ahead of the two cars from Team Project 1.

the third and final free practice session is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. (French time) and qualifying at 16 p.m.