Bahrain Friday Notebook

***Brendon Hartley secured his third consecutive pole position at Bahrain in Friday’s as he led a Toyota front row lockout for Saturday’s FIA World Endurance Championship title-decider. It marked only Toyota’s second pole of the season, after July’s Sao Paulo round, and the first for the No. 8 side of the garage.

***It marks the fourth occasion this season that a manufacturer has swept the front row, with Toyota having done so in Brazil and Ferrari doing so at Imola in April and at the Circuit of The Americas in late August.

***Incidentally, the last time the outright pole-winning car went on to score victory was in last year’s Bahrain race, which was won by Hartley and his co-drivers Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa.

***Speaking in the post-qualifying press conference, Hartley revealed that the No. 8 Toyota underwent a change of all four brakes overnight, which combined with multiple setup changes led to a major upturn in performance on Friday.

***Hartley explained: “We weren’t happy with the brakes yesterday, but we couldn’t really find anything wrong so we just changed the parts. It wasn’t a smooth day for us in car No. 8 [on Thursday], so it was a nice turnaround in terms of feeling for all three drivers. We felt a lot more confident.”

***McLaren meanwhile became the first LMGT3 manufacturer to lock out the front row this season as Josh Caygill beat his United Autosports teammate James Cottingham to the top spot by just two thousandths of a second.

***It marked McLaren’s second pole of the season after Inception Racing’s Brendan Iribe at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, making it only the second LMGT3 manufacturer to achieve multiple pole positions after Lamborghini. United, meanwhile, made it a fifth pole in seven outings in Bahrain, including its previous successes in LMP2.

***Cottingham said he had no frustration about missing out on pole to Caygill, by such a fine margin. He told Sportscar365. “Our times were so close, as near as damn it identical, it’s just unfortunate I didn’t get the medal! The circuit does seem to suit the car, especially as the sun goes down. In FP2 the car felt super-dialled in and really fast.”

***On United’s progress in 2024, Cottingham added: “We’ve made big improvements across the board. We definitely weren’t a strong team at the beginning of the season, and now we are. And the two cars are so evenly matched. I think at the start of the year I had an advantage over Josh, but he has caught up in the second half of the season.”

***Proton Competition’s Ryan Hardwick expressed dismay at having his laps in first qualifying aboard the No. 77 Ford Mustang GT3 deleted. “Only my warmup lap counted,” he said. “I got called for track limits in an area in Turn 5 in a braking zone multiple times. I’m trying to request from Race Control pictures or something. I have a live on-board camera and we went back and watched it. I’m two wheels on the track.”

***Counting only the seven regular WEC rounds, only two cars in the Hypercar class achieved a clean sweep of Hyperpole appearances: the No. 51 Ferrari 499P and the No. 5 Porsche 963. Excluding the Isotta Fraschini, which dropped off the grid mid-season, only the No. 36 Alpine A424 went the whole season without ever making Hyperpole.

***In LMGT3, four cars kept perfect Hyperpole records: the No. 85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2, the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, the No. 59 United McLaren and the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3. Only the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 never made Hyperpole all year.

***Andre Lotterer was tight-lipped about his future options speaking to Sportscar365 in the wake of the news that he will leave Porsche Penske Motorsport in 2025, not ruling out the possibility of extending his relationship with the Weissach marque.

***The three-time 24 Hours of Le Mans winner told Sportscar365: “There are opportunities to stay with Porsche. But I wanted to focus on this race and not get distracted by that, and then decide afterwards. I have a few options, which is good. But winning is the aim for any driver. I don’t want to race just to participate.”

***Lotterer refused to comment on speculation he could be a candidate for development work on the recently-announced Genesis LMDh program ahead of the Hyundai-owned brand’s expected entry into the WEC in 2026.

***Alpine driver Mick Schumacher told Sportscar365 he has no news regarding his 2025 plans yet, after team principal Philippe Sinault expressed confidence that the team would be able to retain the German ex-Formula 1 driver next year.

***Referring to the final vacancy on the 2025 F1 grid at Sauber, Schumacher said: “As long as there is nothing officially communicated, I will not be able to make any decisions. Once that is done, I will know more, but as of today, I don’t know.”

***Porsche Penske Motorsport managing director Jonathan Diuguid told selected reporters that he expects Hypercar teams to mix-and-match Michelin’s Medium and Hard tire compounds in tomorrow’s race, having seen teams try every possible combination in Free Practice.

***Porsche Motorsport boss Thomas Laudenbach said he feels like they have both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ world championships “in our own hands” ahead of tomorrow’s title-decider. “I’m 100 percent convinced that if we do a very good job here… I think we are in a good position to win the championship.”

***Diuguid added: “Our consistent feedback to everybody is don’t do anything different than we’ve done all year. That’s what got us in this position. We haven’t gone points racing a single event this year and we’re not going to go points racing tomorrow, either. Our goal is to maximize our finishing position.”

***Larry ten Voorde arrived at the Bahrain International Circuit on Friday ahead of planned test outing aboard the No. 99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 during Sunday’s rookie test. The Dutchman won his fourth Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland title with Proton Huber Competition earlier this year.

***Ten Voorde told Sportscar365 that he plans to take a step back from his driving commitments to focus on his Driver Academy next year. This year, the Dutchman’s eponymous academy mentored over a dozen talents, including Flynt Schuring, the younger brother of current Manthey LMGT3 driver Morris Schuring.

***Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s expected sextet of drivers for the 2025 season were spotted taking part in a photoshoot in Bahrain. As previously reported by Sportscar365, Cadillac incumbents Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber are set to be joined by Sebastien Bourdais and existing JOTA drivers Will Stevens, Norman Nato and Jenson Button. An official announcement is expected mid-November.

***While Phil Hanson’s future has been resolved with his switch to AF Corse, Oliver Rasmussen looks set to exit the WEC entirely, although the Danish driver has suggested that his 2025 plans will be known soon.

***Keely Bosn, the incoming Cadillac Racing program manager, is on-site this weekend in her first race as part of a fact-finding mission ahead of her new appointment in 2025.

***Bosn, Laura Wontrop Klauser, who is departing GM Motorsports at years’ end, and Mark Stielow, GM’s director of motorsport competition engineering, are all present this weekend for the American manufacturer, with Christie Bagne missing her final race as Corvette GT3 program manager due to illness.

***Among other notables spotted in the paddock include former Starworks Motorsport team owner Peter Baron, whose team won the inaugural WEC LMP2 title in 2012, former Rebellion Racing LMP1 driver Gustavo Menezes and Olivier Panis, whose son Aurelien will participate in the rookie test for Akkodis ASP.

***Longtime Aston Martin WEC driver Pedro Lamy is present in his capacity driver advisor the Porsche Carrera Cup Middle East support category. Lamy’s 55th and final appearance in the series as a driver was at Bahrain in 2020.

***The 8 Hours of Bahrain is set to begin at 2 p.m. local time (7 a.m. EDT) on Saturday with full live coverage on Motor Trend in the U.S., as well as on the streaming service MAX. Click Here for the full TV and streaming schedule.

John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report