Bahrain Thursday Notebook

***Lap times in Thursday practice for this weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship season-closing 8 Hours of Bahrain were significantly slower than those seen on the opening day of last year’s event.

***Dries Vanthoor’s best time aboard the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 in Free Practice 2, a 1:48.257, compares to Toyota driver Kamui Kobayashi’s 2023 benchmark of 1:46.851. This was attributed to stronger winds that meant the day’s running started with more sand on track and less grip than usual.

***Andre Lotterer, who bids farewell to Porsche Penske Motorsport this weekend, is looking to become only the second driver to win WEC titles with two different marques this weekend, having taken his first with Audi in 2012. Brendon Hartley is the only driver to have achieved the feat, doing so with Porsche and Toyota.

***Should Lotterer and his co-drivers in the No. 6 Porsche 963 score victory in Bahrain, it would mark the German driver’s 13th overall WEC win, which would move him into sixth in the all-time winners’ list ahead of Timo Bernhard.

***Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie revealed that the French marque’s picks for Sunday’s rookie test, Theo Pourchaire and Clement Novalak, could be in the running for a reserve role for 2025 as it seeks a replacement for Malthe Jakobsen, who replaces Nico Mueller on its roster of race drivers.

***Jansonnie said: “We will name a seventh driver. Everything is open. We need somebody to jump into the car in case something goes wrong.”

***The Frenchman added that while Peugeot’s race drivers for 2025 are confirmed, with no new additions besides Jakobsen, no final decision has been taken regarding the composition of the two car crews. “We have a bit of time to decide this,” he said.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury says he is intrigued to see what Esteban Masson can do in his first outing behind the wheel of the GR010 Hybrid on Sunday, having been impressed by his performances for the Akkodis ASP LMGT3 team.

***Floury told Sportscar365: “I’m following the GT3 program closely and he has been doing well all season, so it will be interesting to see how he does. The target is not to put him under pressure, it’s just to give him a first taste. But obviously we are following closely what he does, and he is very promising.”

***Floury confirmed there is no stand-by driver on site for Toyota this weekend, with official reserve Ritomo Miyata once again not present in Bahrain. “If we have an issue, we should be able to cover it with two drivers,” he said. “The race goes into the night and once the sun sets it’s not particularly hot.”

***Franck Perera has stood down from his regular drive in the No. 60 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 this weekend as he gears up to try out the Lamborghini SC63 Hypercar in the rookie test. A Lamborghini spokesperson told Sportscar365 that Perera made the decision in order to focus exclusively on preparing for his SC63 outing.

***Perera’s replacement Matteo Cairoli, who has been part of the Lamborghini GTP program in the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup this year, is making his first WEC outing since last year’s Bahrain season closer, and his first in the championship in anything other than a Porsche 911 RSR.

***Raffaele Marciello has described working with BMW as ‘more factory-like’ at the end of his first season since switching from Mercedes-AMG. “You’re more linked with the people in Munich,” Marciello told Sportscar365. “You work with more people, so it’s not good or bad, it’s just different. You have to get used to working with many more people. When you write a report, you have many more people that read your stuff.”

***Marciello returns to Bahrain for the first time since his 2015 GP2 campaign with the Trident team in a field that also featured fellow Hypercar drivers Stoffel Vandoorne, Alex Lynn and Norman Nato as well as Aston Martin factory driver Marco Sorensen.

***Out of the 13 manufacturers competing in this weekend’s eight-hour WEC finale, only Lexus has never previously competed at the Bahrain International Circuit at an international sports car racing event. BMW, meanwhile, returns here after a 20-year absence. The Munich marque was represented by a single M3 GTR during the 2004 Bahrain GT Festival.

***McLaren and Lamborghini, WEC’s two LMGT3 newcomers, were on the grid during the 2018 Nations Cup, while Isa Al Khalifa, Ben Barnicoat and Martin Kodric won the Gulf 12 Hours event in a 2 Seas Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 when it moved from Abu Dhabi to Bahrain on a one-off basis in 2021.

***Notably, Team WRT, which currently runs both BMW’s Hypercar and LMGT3 efforts, contested the 2018 edition of the Nations Cup (the precursor to the FIA Motorsport Games) with an Audi R8 LMS for Mike den Tandt and Charles Weerts before going undefeated here in WEC’s LMP2 class between 2021 and 2023.

***Dries Vanthoor, Weerts’ longtime WRT co-driver, will be making his debut appearance at Bahrain this weekend. “Knowing the team has done a few races here before, it’s a very difficult race,” said the Belgian driver ahead of FP2. “Hard on the tires, but it’s the same for everybody. So if we can manage the tires the best, we can probably have a lovely Saturday.”

***Alpine’s Matthieu Vaxiviere revealed a special helmet design for this weekend’s race paying tribute to Nicolas Lapierre, who retired as a driver after September’s Fuji round. Lapierre and Vaxiviere have shared a car for three of the last four seasons at Alpine, scoring two outright wins together with Andre Negrao at Sebring and Monza in 2022.

***Silverstone managing director Stuart Pringle is on-site at Bahrain this weekend. The British circuit has been regarded as a likely candidate to return to the WEC schedule should the series opt to expand to nine races for the 2026 season, with next year’s calendar remaining steady at eight races.

***Friday’s track action comprises Free Practice 3 at 12 p.m. local time (5 a.m. local time) and qualifying, which begins at 4 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EDT).

Davey Euwema contributed to this report