#8 Toyota GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar shared by Sébastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa Hartley’s extra points are crucial in the championship battle between the Japanese manufacturer’s two crews.
This means that even if Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose María López win the race, the #8 crew can still claim the WEC Hypercar title by finishing third.
Hartley took the points with a time of 1 minute 46.564 seconds, repeating his pole position at the 2022 Bahrain 8 Hours and giving Kobayashi a nearly half-second margin.
The Japanese driver secured second place with a time of 1 minute 47.053 seconds, two-tenths behind Ganassi’s Cadillac V Series R, where Alex Lynn clocked 1 minute 47.265 seconds.
Kevin Estre, in the best of the two Penske Porsche 963 LMDhs, moved into fourth place with a time of 1:47.712 at the end of the 15-minute hypercar session.
His lap dropped Antonio Fuoco in the #50 Ferrari 499P LMH to fifth place by two-hundredths of a second.
Fuoco’s time of 1 minute 47.739 seconds was 10 seconds ahead of teammate Alessandro Pier Guidi, who was second in the Factory AF Corse-run Ferrari.
The second factory Porsche finished seventh, a further 10 seconds behind Frederic Makowiecki, with two customer 963s and Proton Competition entry Gianmaria Bruni just ahead of Will Stevens in the Jota car. exceeded.
Two Peugeot 9X8 LMHs filled 10th and 11th places, with Paul di Resta ahead of Nico Muller, and the Vanwall Vandervell 680 moved to the back of the hypercar field in the hands of Esteban Guerrieri.
Photo provided by: JEP/Motorsports Image
#38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche 963 : Antonio Felix da Costa, Will Stevens, Yifei Ye
Tom Blomqvist qualified for his United Autosports class in the last regular WEC LMP2 race.
His time of 1 minute 52.290 seconds aboard the #23 United Oreca Gibson 07 was nearly three-tenths of a second better than Charles Milesi of the Alpine Oreca team.
The French driver’s time of 1 minute 52.561 seconds put him more than half a second ahead of third place Robin Frijns, who moved up in the standings towards the end of the session with the fastest time of the Belgian WRT team’s entries.
Sister WRT, which leads the P2 points, could only qualify in 10th place at the hands of Luis Deletraz.
Sarah Bobby won the GTE Am Pole of Pole for the third time this year with the Iron Dames Porsche Team.
The Iron Lynx-managed Porsche 911 RSR’s best lap was 1 minute 58.692 seconds, putting it three-tenths of a second ahead of Liam Talbot in the TF Sport-managed D’Station Aston Martin Vantage GTE.
The Australian, who replaced team principal Satoshi Hoshino in the Bahrain race, clocked a time of 1 minute 58.982 seconds at the end of the 15-minute session.
He dropped sister ORT by TF entry Ahmad Al Hersi to third place, but 1 minute 59.161 seconds behind second-place Aston and just 1000 minutes ahead of Corvette Racing entry Ben Keating. The speed was 1.
The 8 Hours of Bahrain will start at 2pm local time on Saturday.