Bahrain WEC: Kobayashi puts #7 Toyota on top in FP2

After Sebastien Buemi topped the timesheets in the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid on Thursday, Kobayashi struck back in FP2 on Friday morning to put the points-leading #7 car ahead of its main championship rival with a time of 1m49.063s.

The Japanese driver was quick out of the gates at the 5.4km circuit, clocking the fastest time of the weekend so far on his first flying lap at the beginning of the 90-minute session.

The #8 Toyota ended up only 0.030s behind the sister car, courtesy of a 1m49.093s flyer set by Buemi’s teammate Brendon Hartley early on.

However, both these times were still seven second slower than what Toyota managed in the corresponding session in Bahrain last year, when the TS050 Hybrid made its farewell appearance in the WEC.

Alpine was again unable to match the two Toyotas up front, with Matthieu Vaxiviere managing a best time of 1m50.194s in the #36 A480-Gibson.

The gap between the lead Toyota and the sole Alpine doubled to 1.131s in FP2 after Nicolas Lapierre finished just over half a second behind Buemi in Thursday’s opening practice.

However, Toyota didn't exactly have a smooth session, with Buemi colliding with the #85 Iron Lynx Ferrari of Sarah Bovy at Turn 1 in the final 30 minutes, bringing out the sole red flag of the session.

Crash of #8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 - Hybrid: Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, Brendon Hartley

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

In LMP2, Tom Blomqvist put the points-leading #28 JOTA Oreca on top with a time of 1m50.199s, leading the #22 United Autosports Oreca of Filipe Albuquerque by a massive eight tenths of a second.

The #31 Team WRT Oreca was third in the hands of Charles Milesi, while ARC Bratislava was classified fourth - and the best among the Pro-Am entrants - courtesy of Oliver Webb’s time of 1m51.382s in the #44 Oreca.

Porsche maintained its lead over Ferrari in the GTE Pro division, with Kevin Estre clocking the quickest time in the #92 911 RSR-19.

Estre’s lap of 1m56.411s was just over two tenths faster than what Gianmaria Bruni managed in the sister #91 Porsche and nearly three seconds up on the lead Ferrari, the #51 AF Corse 488 GTE driven by James Calado.

Miguel Molina was last of the class runners in the #52 Ferrari.

The two AF Corse-run Ferrari GTE Pro entries have received a major Balance of Performance hit for the final two rounds of the season in Bahrain, robbing the car of 25bhp in comparison with the Monza race in July. The Italian marque claims these changes were made outside of the WEC’s auto BoP system, which applies to every round except the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Team Project 1 led the way in  GTE Am courtesy of Matteo Cairoli’s time of 1m58.015s in the #56 Porsche.

The #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage finished second with Felipe Fraga at the wheel, while the top three was rounded by the Dempsey Proton team - with Matt Campbell setting the quickest time aboard the #77 Porsche.

The qualifying for WEC 6 Hours of Bahrain will be streamed live on Motorsport.tv. Click here for more information. 

Practice results:

Cla	#	Drivers	Car	Class	Time	Gap
1	7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Jose Maria Lopez	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'49.063
2	8	Sébastien Buemi Kazuki Nakajima Brendon Hartley	Toyota GR010 - Hybrid	HYPERCAR	1'49.093	0.030
3	36	Andre Negrao Nicolas Lapierre Matthieu Vaxiviere	Alpine A480	HYPERCAR	1'50.194	1.131
4	28	Sean Gelael Stoffel Vandoorne Tom Blomqvist	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.199	1.136
5	22	Philip Hanson Fabio Scherer Filipe Albuquerque	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'50.979	1.916
6	31	Robin Frijns Ferdinand Habsburg Charles Milesi	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.075	2.012
7	44	Miro Konopka Oliver Webb Kush Maini	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.382	2.319
8	20	Dennis Andersen Anders Fjordbach Robert Kubica	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.493	2.430
9	34	Jakub Smiechowski Renger van der Zande Alex Brundle	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'51.595	2.532
10	21	Henrik Hedman Juan Pablo Montoya Ben Hanley	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'52.160	3.097
11	38	Roberto Gonzalez Antonio Felix da Costa Anthony Davidson	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'53.538	4.475
12	1	Sophia Flörsch Beitske Visser Gabriel Aubry	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'53.919	4.856
13	70	Esteban Garcia Loic Duval Norman Nato	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'54.308	5.245
14	92	Kevin Estre Neel Jani	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	1'56.411	7.348
15	29	Frits van Eerd Giedo van der Garde Job Van Uitert	Oreca 07	LMP2	1'56.543	7.480
16	91	Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE PRO	1'56.658	7.595
17	56	Egidio Perfetti Matteo Cairoli Riccardo Pera	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'58.015	8.952
18	33	Ben Keating Dylan Pereira Felipe Fraga	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	1'58.919	9.856
19	77	Christian Ried Jaxon Evans Matt Campbell	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	1'59.020	9.957
20	51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'59.317	10.254
21	52	Daniel Serra Miguel Molina	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE PRO	1'59.486	10.423
22	47	Roberto Lacorte Giorgio Sernagiotto Antonio Fuoco	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	1'59.970	10.907
23	777	Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Andrew Watson	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	2'00.164	11.101
24	98	Paul Dalla Lana Augusto Farfus Marcos Gomes	Aston Martin Vantage AMR	LMGTE AM	2'00.392	11.329
25	83	François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'00.509	11.446
26	88	Khaled Al Qubaisi Adrien de Leener Julien Andlauer	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	2'00.617	11.554
27	54	Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Giancarlo Fisichella	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'00.631	11.568
28	86	Michael Wainwright Benjamin Barker Tom Gamble	Porsche 911 RSR - 19	LMGTE AM	2'00.907	11.844
29	60	Rino Mastronardi Andrea Piccini Matteo Cressoni	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'01.017	11.954
30	57	Takeshi Kimura Mikkel Jensen Scott Andrews	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'01.187	12.124
31	85	Rahel Frey Sarah Bovy Katherine Legge	Ferrari 488 GTE EVO	LMGTE AM	2'01.248	12.185
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