8 Hours of Bahrain – Free Practice: Toyota, in the rain as well as on dry track
This Thursday marked the start of the 8 Hours of Bahrain, which will take place on Saturday. Right from the first free practice sessions, Toyota showed that the battle wouldn't be easy... even under unexpected pouring rain!
It was the big surprise of the first Free Practice session: the rain came pouring down on the Bahrain circuit for a good part of the session. Furthermore, it was interrupted by a red flag due to the fall of a billboard.
Nothing disturbed Toyota’s forward march, as they placed their two GR010s at the front of the pack. Car number 7 (Kobayashi/Conway/Lopez) posted a time of 1:49.856, ahead of car number 8 (Buemi/Hartley/Hirakawa) by a tenth of a second. The Ferraris, on the other hand, were two seconds behind, only ahead of the Peugeots and the Vanwall. However, the pleasant surprise came from Porsche, but not from the official teams: the number 99 Porsche 963 from Proton Competition took third place, just ahead of the official cars numbers 6 and 5.
United Autosport has nicely opened the race in LMP2, in the hands of Frederick Lubin on car number 22, while the first Alpine, car number 36, finished in 6th place.
In GTE-Am, the best time was set by the Aston Martin of D’Station Racing (No.777), just ahead of the Ferrari No.57 of Kessel Racing.
The rain is gone for the EL2s.
The second session of the day was much more representative of what the 8 Hours of Bahrain will be like, as the race will be held in semi-night conditions.
Once again, no mercy for the Toyotas, as they continued their march forward – the N°7, three seconds faster than in FP1, once again outperformed its sister, the N°8.
It should be noted the good shape of Cadillac (3rd with N°2) and Porsche, who benefited from a seven-kilogram weight reduction for this final race of the season. However, this does not explain the surprising drop in form of Ferrari, who were almost four seconds slower than Toyota… perhaps they are hiding their game.
In LMP2, United N°22 showed a very strong pace by once again setting the fastest time. Prema N°63 followed closely behind, only three tenths behind, as did Alpine N°36 driven by Matthieu Vaxivière, who had a very productive session.
The GTE-Am category saw Kessel Racing regain control to conclude this Thursday, ahead of the GR Racing Porsche (No. 86).
The best times from the free practice sessions.
| Séance | Hypercar | LMP2 | GTE-Am | |
| 1 | Essais Libres 1 | Toyota N°7 (1:49.856) | United Autosport N°22 (1:54.100) | D’Station N°777 (1:59.516) |
| 2 | Essais Libres 2 | Toyota N°7 (1:46.851) | United Autosport N°22 (1:52.850) | Kessel Racing N°57 (1:58.246) |
