Porsche on pole
Manama: Nick Tandy came on late in qualifying to help World champions Porsche steal pole position for the FIA WEC Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain.
With only minutes remaining in qualifying, Tandy steered his no. 1 Toyota Hybrid to the top of the timesheet as he and teammate Neel Jani had a best average lap time of one minute 39.383 seconds.
WEC qualifying headlined a hugely exciting second day of the WEC race weekend at Bahrain International Circuit (BIC).
The Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain flags off at 4pm today.
In WEC quailing, each team must designate two drivers to take part in the session. The two drivers must each set at least one timed lap during qualifying. The average of the two best lap times (the best from each driver) will serve as the reference time for establishing the grid.
While Tandy and Jani gained pole position, the other front row position was taken by LMP1 rivals Toyota with the no. 7 Hybrid of Jose Maria Lopez and Mike Conway. They clocked a best average lap of 1:39.646.
Classified third overall was the drivers’ world-title winning car of Timo Bernhard and Brendon Hartley, who had an average time that was 10.628s behind the leader. In fourth was Anthony Davidson in the no. 8 Toyota. He and qualifying partner Kazuki Nakajima had a fastest average lap time that was 1.391s off the pace.
In LMP2 qualifying, Gustavo Menezes helped steer the Alpine A470-Gibon of Signatech Alpine Matmut to the top of their group. He and Andre Negrao had a quickest average lap of 1:47.227.
In the LMGTE Pro class, AF Corse’s Davide Rigon put his team up in first place early on, and after teammate Sam Bird took over in their Ferrari 488 GTE they managed a best average lap of 1:56.033.
Amongst the LMGTE Amateur participants, the Aston Martin Vantage of Paul Dalla Lana and Pedro Lamy were top with an average lap of 1:59.328.
Meanwhile, earlier in the day Porsche already made their presence felt after topping the timesheets in Free Practice 3.
It was Bernhard, Hartley and Earl Bamber who set the pace. They steered their car to a best lap of 1:42.438 seconds.
The LMP2 car of Ho-Pin Tung, Oliver Jarvis and Thomas Laurent was on top of their class with a best lap of 1:48.879 in the Oreca-07 of Jackie Chan DC Racing.
In the LMGTE Pro, AF Corse’s James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guida had a best lap of 1:57.972 in their Ferrari 488 GTE.
In the LMGTE Am class, Clearwater Racing’s Weng Sun Mok, Keita Sawa and Matthew Griffin had a quickest time of 2:00.661 to top their classification.
Brazilian Felipe Drugovich got his 2017 MRF Challenge campaign off to a perfect start by winning both races in the season opener, held as part of the WEC weekend at BIC.
Drugovich pulled off a last lap move on Manuel Maldonado, cousin of former F1 racer Pastor Maldonado, to win race two. Presley Martono also passed Maldonado on the run-up to the chequered flag to beat the Venezuelan by 0.010s and take second spot.
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