It’s hot, very hot this morning
Rebellion Racing are in great shape here with both R-Ones completely refettled after their Chinese travails. As covered in our race weekend preview Hick Heidfeld misses this race after injury in the last Formula E race and Matheo Tuscher is back in the #13 after and impressive debut at Shanghai.
At Toyota Alex Wurz was putting in his last ever pitstop practice session, watched by the family from the pitwall.
Recently appointed new Nissan LMP1 Team Principal Michael Carcamo is here this weekend. We’ll be catching up with him for an update on the GT-R LM Programme.
The #44 AF Racing BR01 is set to make its 6 hour racing debut this weekend, the team pushing hard for an elusive win in the now Dunlop-shod car. The team are garaged alongside the GTE Am Championship leading Ferrari.
Both Tequila Patron ESM Ligiers have a late change this weekend, the removal of the word ‘Tequila’ from the cars.
Whilst boards inside the team garage still feature Tequila Patron prominently, the strict stance on alcohol in the Kingdom of Bahrain meant that the branding on the cars themselves fell foul. The team though have done a great job in disguising the change.
The #95 Aston Martin is a welcome re-introduction to the grid after missing Shanghai in protest at a Balance of Performance that the team felt left them unable to compete. Nicki Thiim rejoins the effort for the first time since Le Mans.
In GTE AM there are several changes to the entry from China:
Kristian Poulsen is back aboard the #50 Larbre Corvette after missing the last two races
Ditto Roald Goethe in the #95 ROFGO AMR Aston, though Roald has missed the last three.
Proton’s Porsche pair feature driver shake-ups after Patrick Dempsey’s day job enforced stand down – Christian Ried replacing the American in #77 and Marco Mapelli in turn replacing Ried in the #88, the Italian making his WEC debut after racing for the team in the ELMS at Iola.
Finally there’s a change too in the still Championship contending #83 AF Corse Ferrari as Matteo Cressoni replaces Rui Aguas.
