The FIA World Endurance Championship’s 8 Hours of Bahrain saw Kamui Kobayashi lead a Toyota Gazoo Racing 1-2 in the second Free Practice session.
In the second practice session for the Bahrain World Endurance Championship final, Toyota remained on top of the timesheets, with Kamui Kobayashi once again setting the pace for the Japanese automaker.
Just twenty-five minutes into the session, Kobayashi clocked a fast time of 1m46.851s in the #7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID, more than three seconds faster than his fastest lap in FP1.
Brendon Hartley also improved significantly in the #8 Toyota this afternoon, but Kobayashi was the only driver to crack the 1m47s barrier when the checkered flag went up after 90 minutes of action, indicating that the difference between the two LMH cars from the marque grew to 0.461s.
Alex Lynn’s early run in 1m47.690s helped Cadillac turn out to be Toyota’s closest rival in second practice, albeit the team was still about nine tenths off the pace in a session where the entire field of hypercars stood apart by only five seconds.
Jota took the lead for Porsche, with Will Stevens in the team’s #38 963 LMDh setting the fourth-fastest time. The factory Penske squad wasn’t far behind in fifth place, after Laurens Vanthoor’s time of 1m48.427s in the #6 entry.
Nico Muller propelled Peugeot up to sixth place with a lap of 1m48.470s in the #94 9X8, while Proton Porsche dropped from third to seventh place after daybreak, with the customer Porsche team finishing slightly slower than the time benchmark.
Paul di Resta, driving the team’s #93 Peugeot, finished eighth, ahead of Michael Christensen’s #5 Porsche.
Antonio Fuoco led the Ferrari runners in the #50 499P during another uneventful session for the Maranello squad in Bahrain with its two LMHs finishing nearly 3.5 seconds slower than the fastest car. The battle between the twelve hypercars was rounded out by Vanwall.
LMP2 saw Filipe Albuquerque lead the #63 Prema driven by Mirko Bortolotti after setting the fastest time once more in the #22 United Autosports Oreca 07. The gap between the two leading drivers was 0.325 seconds, with Charles Milesi in the #36 Alpine finishing 0.005 seconds behind in third.
With a lap time of 1m58.246s around the Bahrain International Circuit, Daniel Serra aboard the #57 Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GTE took first place in GTE Am.
Matteo Cairoli had taken the lead early on in the #56 Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR-19, but he gradually lost ground to Riccardo Pera in the GR Racing-entered car that was identical.
With thirty minutes remaining, Cairoli’s co-driver Gunnar Jeanette spun and eventually crashed the No. 56 Project 1-AO Porsche into the wall at Turn 15, causing rear damage. The event triggered a red flag, and in order to make up for the interruption, the session was prolonged by ten minutes.
The third and final Free Practice session at the Bahrain International Circuit gets underway on Friday at 12 p.m. local time.
