The World Drivers Championship-leading #2 Porsche of Romain Dumas, Marc Lieb and Neel Jani started off the final weekend of the season running fastest in Free Practice 1 at Bahrain. Quickest in the trio’s 919 Hybrid was Jani, who set a 1:42.107, over three tenths quicker than the chasing pack in the first part of the session .
Second and third quickest in the weekend’s first 90-minute session were the #8 and #7 Audis respectively, with their times a 1:42.450 set by Loic Duval and a 1:42.515 by Benoit Treluyer.
The first of the Toyotas, the #6, ended up fourth ahead of the #1 Porsche fifth, seven and eight tenths back from the #2. Rebellion Racing topped LMP1 L with a 1:46.366, a time almost two seconds quicker than the ByKolles CLM.
In the LMP2 ranks, the 2016 champions in the Signatech Alpine ran fastest, staying atop the screens in the class for the majority of the session; the car’s best time a 1:50.966. Second and third in the class were made up of the #45 Manor and #26 G-Drive Oreca’s respectively two and three tenths off the top spot. In the end the first non Oreca chassis was the RGR Sport Ligier in fourth after Filipe Albuquerque’s early 1:51.581.
Aston Martin led the way in GTE Pro, finishing up the afternoon’s running 1-2 in the standings. Quickest of the two Vantages was the #97, courtesy of a 1:58.735 flyer set early in the session by Darren Turner. Championship hopeful Nick Thiim went fastest in the #95 to put the car second, four tenths off.
Third spot was taken by the Dempsey Proton Porsche, which paced both AF Corse 488s and Ford GTs in the session with a 1:59.420.
AF Corse did however manage to get its 458 quickest in GTE Am, with the championship leaders Emmanuel Collard, Rui Aguas and Francois Perrodo all turning laps; the best being a 2:01.550. The #98 Aston Martin, which had an off at Turn 1, resulting in the car getting stranded in the gravel 30 minutes into the session during Paul Dalla Lana’s stint, came home second quickest with a 2:01.552. The Larbre Corvette C7.R bookended the top three.
Free Practice 2 is set to begin at 19:30 local time under the floodlights in Bahrain.
