Senna Puts Rebellion on Top in Bahrain Night Practice

Bruno Senna set Rebellion Racing’s R13 Gibson on top of the timing sheets in Thursday’s night practice session at Bahrain International Circuit.

Senna set a time of 1:42.471 under the floodlights to go quickest on the opening day of the FIA World Endurance Championship’s fourth round of the 2019-20 season.

The Brazilian’s lap was 2.3 seconds quicker than the fastest tour from Thursday’s first session which was led by Team LNT Ginetta driver Ben Hanley.

Senna, who shares the Rebellion with Norman Nato and Gustavo Menezes, initially went ahead of both Toyota TS050 Hybrids and the No. 5 Ginetta G60-LT-P1 AER with his time.

However, an improvement from Charlie Roberton with 18 minutes to go elevated the Ginetta ahead of the two Toyotas, which are competing with the largest success handicaps of the LMP1 field this weekend.

The best of the TS050 Hybrids was the No. 7 car which completed a lap of the 3.36-mile Sakhir circuit in a time of 1:44.221 with Mike Coway behind the wheel.

Team LNT’s No. 6 Ginetta didn’t leave its garage until the final half-hour of FP2, during which Mike Simpson elevated it to sixth in the overall order with 1:46.373 effort.

Eclipsing that car’s final number was the LMP2-leading Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca 07 Gibson which achieved a time of 1:46.147 with Will Stevens at the helm.

Stevens beat G-Drive Racing’s Jean-Eric Vergne to the top spot in class by half a second, while Toyota protege Kenta Yamashita lapped third-quickest for High Class Racing.

The GTE-Pro division saw Aston Martin recover from propping up the field in FP1, which was held on Thursday afternoon, to running 1-2 in the category at the end of FP2.

Alex Lynn and Marco Sorensen each set early times that would put the two works Aston Martin Vantage GTEs out front until the end of the session.

Lynn managed to break the 1m 56s barrier while Sorensen registered a 1:56.201. Third in class on a 1:56.387 was Kevin Estre in the points-leading No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR.

In GTE-Am, Matteo Cairoli split the two Pro-class factory cars to lead in the No. 56 Team Project 1 Porsche from the No. 88 Dempsey-Proton Racing Porsche and the No. 90 TF Sport Aston Martin.

RESULTS: Free Practice 2