Aston Martin THOR Team leads the 8 Hours of Bahrain at the halfway point with its #009 Valkyrie, after a recent Safety Car closed up the field in the FIA WEC season finale.
Alex Riberas has been on a charge since the race restarted with four hours and 18 minutes to go, climbing from fourth to the race lead in under 10 minutes.
He passed the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P of Alessandro Pier Guidi on the restart lap, before setting off in pursuit of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s pair of GR010-Hybrids, which had controlled the race until that point.
Riberas disposed of the Nyck de Vries’ #7 Toyota into Turn 1 two laps later, before passing Sébastien Buemi out of Turn 4 for the lead with four hours and 10 minutes to go. The Aston Martin has since pulled away and now leads by over seven seconds, although a stewards’ investigation shortly after the fifth hour began saw the car handed a drive-through for a Virtual Safety Car infringement.
Nevertheless, this is the first time that the Aston Martin Valkyrie has led an FIA WEC race, which means all eight Hypercar manufacturers have led a race in 2025.
The sister #007 Valkyrie has also been on the move, with Ross Gunn climbing from ninth to fifth since the restart, with the #83 AF Corse Ferrari completing the top six.
Several Hypercar runners have elected to go off-strategy and pit after the restart, with them currently led by the #94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 of debutant Théo Pourchaire in 13th overall. The pair of Peugeots were the closest challengers to the Toyotas in the opening stint, but have since fallen away from the lead battle.
Until De Angelis’ recent charge, the pair of Toyotas had been trading the lead amongst themselves following their front-row lockout. Mike Conway controlled the opening hour in the #7 GR010-Hybrid, before Brendon Hartley vaulted to the lead in the #8 entry at the first round of pit stops, through a combination of under-fuelling and not changing tyres.
Conway then closed back in on his teammate and reclaimed the lead, as the GR010-Hybrids and championship-leading #51 Ferrari piloted by Antonio Giovinazzi pulled away from the rest of the field. The #7 Toyota then led until the Safety Car restart, when Buemi passed de Vries with a tyre advantage into Turn 1.
And in LMGT3, José Maria López leads the way in the #87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3.
The #87 Lexus hit the front during an impressive stint by Bronze-rated Petru Umbrarescu in the third hour, and López has pulled over four seconds ahead of Maxime Martin’s #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 since the restart.
Of the title protagonists, the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 GT3 R (992) LMGT3 has fared best so far, and currently runs third. Having started 17th, progress was slow early on, but Ryan Hardwick climbed into the top 10 during the second hour, and then the top six as he completed his drive time in a single triple stint.
The #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 is fourth, ahead of the #33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R and #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3.
It’s been a difficult race so far for the #81 TF Sport Corvette, which has struggled to make progress from its 14th-place starting position and currently runs 13th.
The #59 United Autosports McLaren LMGT3 Evo is 10 laps down after a trip to the garage to repair an alternator problem, whilst the pole-sitting #78 Lexus has spent the last two hours in the garage as Akkodis ASP attempts to diagnose an electronic issue.
The first official retirement was the #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3, after an accident for Thomas Flohr at the beginning of the fourth hour triggered the race’s only Safety Car to date.
The battling #20 BMW of Sheldon van der Linde and #38 Cadillac of Jenson Button attempted to split either side of Flohr out of Turn 3, with glancing contact between Button and Flohr spearing the Ferrari towards the inside wall and into retirement. Button was subsequently awarded a 30-second stop-go penalty for the incident.
Featured image courtesy of DPPI
