REBELLION R-ONE #12 TO START FROM THIRD ROW AT THE 6 HOURS OF BAHRAIN

After today’s qualifying session for the 2014 FIA WEC 6 Hours of Bahrain race, Nick Heidfeld and Nicolas Prost secured their fifth Pole position of the season in the LMP1-L class with the #12 Rebellion R-One Toyota. They achieved an average lap time of 1:47.047 and a fastest lap of 1:46.186. The Rebellion R-One Toyota #12 car will start tomorrow’s race from the third row on the grid.

The sister Rebellion R-One Toyota #13 car driven by Fabio Leimer and Dominik Kraihamer achieved an average lap time of 1:47.705 and a best lap of 1:46.454. The #13 car will start the race from the fourth row, in seventh position on the grid.

The 6 Hours of Bahrain race will start on Saturday 15th November at 3 pm local time (1 pm CET).

Nick Heidfeld – Rebellion R-One Toyota #12
« I think our team did a very good job, we made some changes on the car since free practice 3 and they had a positive impact on the performance. We were not expecting a gap of seven tenths to the #13 car. We improved the car lot in the last two races. As we can’t do private testing during this part of the season we use our race weekend to test. »

Nicolas Prost – Rebellion R-One Toyota #12
« For Nick and I, it was a very good quali. We thought that car #13 would be very close again. That’s a substantial gap I think we made, so I’m quite happy about our performance. The very positive thing is that this is the closest we’ve been to the works teams this season and also it’s a long track so it’s quite good. We are making progress. The gap to the factory cars is still pretty big, but if you look at the gap behind us to the only other car racing in the same regulations as us, it’s four and a half seconds so I think we are not doing a bad job, it’s just that it is hard to beat the hybrid factory cars.»

Fabio Leimer – Rebellion R-One Toyota #13
« It was a really good battle today. We improved the car from Shanghai to now. It’s already a really really positive step forward. Overall, we were really close to the sister car and we would have liked to have beaten them in quali. But they were a little bit quicker and at the end they did a better job. Now we have to be focused for tomorrow. I think in this race we have a better car than the #12 car. We will see tomorrow. I hope we can beat them. »

Dominik Kraihamer – Rebellion R-One Toyota #13
« I’m satisfied because qualifying here was a lot better than in Shanghaï. We have focussed our work on finding a good setup for the race and we knew that we might be slightly compromised for qualifying. But that’s not a problem because we don’t win anything in qualifying. The car was nice to drive. We did slight changes from free practice 3 to qualifying and maybe we took the right way on the way we want to go. I feel comfortable with the car. If we go back to all we have in free practice 3, I’m confident for the race. It’s a 6 hours long race and it’s just a matter of getting constant speed, doing constant lap times, handling the traffic well and watching out for pickup on the tyres and it will be fine.»

Bart Hayden – Rebellion Racing Team Manager
« It’s very satisfying to see that the momentum that we gained in the last few races has carried on here in Bahrain. The free practice sessions were very productive and we did the job in qualifying. We are well set up for the race and it should be exciting because our cars are well matched. We would like to get another 1 – 2, so that will be our target. »