FIA WEC – Toyota turns up the tempo in title battle with Bahrain front row lockout
Toyota has thrown down the gauntlet to its rivals for the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship Manufacturers’ crown in Bahrain today, with a commanding performance in qualifying to lock out the front row of the grid for Saturday’s title-deciding finale.
For the third year in a row, Brendon Hartley put the #8 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing GR010 Hybrid on pole position around Bahrain International Circuit, where the Japanese outfit boasts an enviable record, having won 75 per cent of the WEC races held there to-date. Tomorrow, the New Zealander together with team-mates Sébastien Buemi and Ryō Hirakawa will aim to become the first Hypercar crew to successfully convert pole into victory this year.
“Big thanks to the team, and to Ryō and Seb for putting their trust in me to qualify the car,” Hartley commented. “We had a tough day yesterday, but we changed a few things today and turned it around. I don’t think I got the tyres quite hot enough in the first part of the session, but we knew there was more time in it and we learned from that mistake for Hyperpole, when the car really came alive.
“It’s never perfect, of course, but the lap came together and it’s so good to take our first pole of the season. It’s been a tough year for us, but we will push to finish on a high and our goal is to go into the winter break with a win. The first part of the job is done, but we have a big challenge tomorrow, because Porsche’s long-run pace in practice looked phenomenally strong. It’s all to play for.”
Hartley wound up just under a third-of-a-second quicker than team-mate Nyck de Vries in the #7 Toyota, with Antonio Giovinazzi missing out on a spot on the front row by barely four hundredths in the best of the Ferrari 499Ps.
Neel Jani was the highest-placed Porsche driver in fourth in the independent Proton Competition entry – the Swiss star setting the pace in the final sector of the lap – with the two principal protagonists for the Drivers’ title set to line up alongside one another on row three. Behind the wheel of the #50 Ferrari, Antonio Fuoco edged out Kévin Estre in the championship-leading #6 Porsche by a mere 0.015s.
The top ten was completed by Norman Nato in the #12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche, Laurens Vanthoor in BMW M Team WRT’s #15 entry, Matt Campbell in the second Porsche Penske Motorsport car and Robin Frijns in the #20 BMW.
Further down the order, there was disappointment for Fuji qualifying star Alex Lynn in the Cadillac V-Series.R, with the Briton only managing one representative lap time on his way to 13th. Free practice pace-setter Peugeot similarly failed to fulfil its promise, with the two 9X8s a lowly 15th and 18th, as Alpine Endurance Team endured a nightmare just seven weeks on from the first podium finish for the French manufacturer’s A424.
Traffic for Ferdinand Habsburg and a mistake by Mick Schumacher left the #35 and #36 cars rooted to 14th and 17th positions in the overall order.
McLaren mastery in LMGT3
United Autosports hit their adversaries with the old one-two in the LMGT3 category, with Joshua Caygill and James Cottingham’s McLarens separated by a scant two thousandths-of-a-second at the top of the timing screens as the former secured the British outfit’s first pole position of the campaign.
Fuji pole-sitter François Heriau pushed the pair hardest in third to maintain Vista AF Corse’s strong finish to the season with the Ferrari 296 GT3, as Sarah Bovy slotted the Iron Dames’ Lamborghini Huracán into fourth, ahead of Aliaksandr Malykhin in the recently-crowned #92 Manthey Purerxcing Porsche.
Barely a second blanketed the entire LMGT3 top ten, setting the scene for a spectacularly close scrap on race day, while early casualties included three of the contenders for the runner-up spoils in the standings, with neither the #91 Manthey Porsche nor either of the Team WRT BMWs progressing through to Hyperpole.
The Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain is scheduled to get underway at 14:00 local time (12:00 CET) on Saturday (2 November).
