Kamui Kobayashi and Sébastien Buemi drove their Toyota GR010 HYBRID Le Mans hypercars to a 1-2 finish in free practice 1 of the Bahrain 8 Hours, improving their times after a 45-minute break. Ta.
The red flags came as strong winds blew away advertisements strewn across the track, which later drew attention to banners placed elsewhere around the Bahrain International Circuit.
Buemi had set the fastest time before the break with a time of 1 minute 49.976 seconds, which he improved to 1 minute 49.960 seconds immediately after the race restarted.
Kobayashi then set the fastest time, clocking a time of 1:49.856, almost one-tenth faster.
Four Porsche 963 LMDhs occupied third through sixth places in the WEC hypercar field, with two Penske-operated factory cars sandwiched between two customer entries.
Gianmaria Bruni, riding a Proton Competition machine, recorded a time of 1 minute 50.290 seconds immediately after the stoppage, making him the fastest time of the Porsche group and coming in 3rd place.
In the first Penske car, Lawrence Vanthoor was just three-hundredths behind with a time of 1:50.328, but in the other entry for the American team, Michael Christensen was 10 times ahead with a time of 1:50.403. The difference was less than 1/2.
Will Stevens, riding a Jota Porsche, finished 6th with a time of 1:50.507.
The single-factory Cadillac V-Series.R operated by Chip Ganassi Racing took seventh place from Alex Lynn with a time of 1:50.542.
Ferrari took 8th and 9th place in the FP1 class, with James Calado’s best result of 1:51.482 in the 499P LMH falling short of Miguel Molina’s 1:51.722 in his sister car. Ta.
The two Peugeot 9X8 LMHs finished 10th and 11th in the hands of Nico Müller and Paul di Resta, ahead of the Vanwall Vandervell 680 LMH driven by Esteban Guerrieri.
Rain was reported in some corners of FP1, and conditions were declared wet when the race restarted.
The session was quickly extended to 90 minutes to allow for interruptions, but after just over 30 minutes the rain became heavier.
This caused 36 cars to pit, with only a few returning to the wet and dry track in the final minutes.
Filipe Albuquerque set the fastest time in LMP2 for the United Autosport team after sharing the fastest time with Gabriel Aubry in the Vector Sport ORECA-Gibson 07.
Albuquerque lowered his time to 1:54.100, giving him more than a half-second margin over Aubrey’s 1:54.654.
Ferdinand Habsburg finished third in WRT, ahead of Jota’s LMP2 driver Oliver Rasmussen.
The D’Station Aston Martin Vantage GTE, operated by TF Sport, was driven by Tomonobu Fujii and recorded the fastest time in GTE Am.
The Japanese driver’s time of 1 minute 59.516 seconds was just six thousandths faster than Daniel Serra’s best time in the Kessel Ferrari 488 GTE.
The second practice for the Bahrain race is scheduled to start on Thursday at 17:30.