World Champion-in-waiting Allan McNish set down an early marker of 1:46.8 on his first flying lap in the #1 Audi, then took another second-and-a-half out of that in the opening stages of this 90-minute session, run in typically dry and dusty conditions at the Bahrain International Circuit.
Toyota wasn’t as quick to set a flyer, but Lapierre opened the #7 car’s account with a solid 1:46.0. Things were less rosy for the sister #8 car, with an alternator problem robbing them of some valuable track time here.
Marcel Fassler then made a statement of intent on behalf of the #2 Audi crew, topping the LMP1 timing screens with a 1:45 dead. This time remained unchallenged for much of the session, but with just over 30 minutes to go, Alex Wurz rejuvenated the #7 Toyota’s charge with a lap of 1:43.8, which he later bettered by a full seven tenths of a second – enough to put his car on top after the 90 minutes of running concluded. It’s thought a rear-wing swap during the session was the key to this.
Behind the top four, the Rebellion Lola remained the usual two-three seconds behind the works quartet throughout. It will be another case of waiting for the big boys to make a mistake this weekend for the Anglo-Swiss team as they look ahead to tackling 2014 with an all-new car.
LMP2 looks like a straight fight between Oak and ADR-Delta right now. Alex Brundle’s early quick lap in the #24 of 1:52.3 stood for nearly the entire session, but the #26 wasn’t far behind, with John Martin getting in a 1:52.8 early on. Behind them, no less than three of the second-tier prototypes recorded 1:53.1s by the time the flag fell: the #35 Oak, #49 Pecom Oreca and #41 Greaves Zytek.
Similar competitiveness appears to be the order of the day in GTE. Porsche has debuted its 2014 evolution of the 991 RSR at Bahrain, and judging by the pace shown in this session, the (mostly aero) updates seemed to have worked. It seems the weekend will be a balancing act between trying to claim the drivers’ title for Lieb and Lietz while also gathering data on the new and improved car.
The Weissach men still can’t shake Aston Martin and Ferrari when it comes to pure speed, though: with just seconds to spare, Darren Turner became the only driver in the GTE Pro class to sneak under the two-minute barrier, banging in a 1:59.565 to put some breathing room between him and the gaggle of drivers from second to sixth that were covered by just two-tenths of a second: Bruni (#51 Ferrari), Lietz (#92 Porsche), Stanaway (#99 Aston) and Pilet (#91 Porsche). Fisichella and Kobayashi’s #71 458 was mysteriously off the pace, however.
The GTE Ams also put on a decent show, with strong laps being turned in by Proton Competition’s Paolo Ruberti and 8Star Motorsport’s Davide Rigon in the early running. The #95 Aston came on strong as the 90 minutes wound down however, with the team’s young charger Nikki Thiim setting the bar at 2:00.851 as darkness closed in over the track.
The circuit’s large runoff areas seemed to do their job of preventing major incidents – only a few brief yellows were called for during this session, either due to debris on track or harmless spins. Two cars did visit the pits for repairs, however: the #95 GTE Am Aston and #25 LMP2 Oreca needing suspension work – possibly due to some over-enthusiastic runs over BIC’s occasionally pretty harsh kerbs.
Stephen Errity (@83ste)
