Toyota’s Buemi Leads Opening Hour in Bahrain

Toyota driver Sebastien Buemi led the opening hour of the FIA World Endurance Championship 8 Hours of Bahrain with Peugeot’s Paul di Resta running in second until the first round of pit stops.

Buemi maintained his pole position advantage at the start, keeping his title-contending No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid in front of Di Resta’s No. 93 Peugeot 9X8.

Di Resta closed in on the Toyota driver as the Hypercar front-runners started to negotiate GT traffic, but Buemi managed to push on and establish a four-second buffer.

The No. 8 Toyota remained in the lead, while the highest-placed Peugeot dropped behind the No. 7 Toyota of Jose Maria Lopez during the pit cycle after a stop that was three seconds slower.

Matthieu Vaxivier ran fourth for Alpine after a Nico Lapierre single stint, ahead of Peugeot driver Gustavo Menezes.

Porsche and Ferrari had some early tussles in the opening hour between their GTE-Pro factory crews.

Antonio Fuoco charged into the lead aboard the No. 52 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo after starting second behind Porsche’s Kevin Estre.

The Italian initially dropped behind Gianmaria Bruni’s Porsche 911 RSR-19, handing the German manufacturer a one-two placing.

But Fuoco fought back and overtook Bruni after 14 minutes of racing that included the pair making contact on the run down from Turn 4.

Fuoco then closed the two-second gap to Estre and passed the Frenchman with a neat overtake into the final corner.

Filipe Albuquerque made a strong start in LMP2 but it was later revealed that the United Autosports driver went off-track in his overtake of the pole-sitting No. 41 RealTeam by WRT Oreca 07 Gibson of Ferdinand Habsburg.

Albuquerque was handed an additional 10-second hold after his second pit stop, but the Portuguese driver was 18 seconds of teammate Alex Lynn after the first set of services had been completed.

Realteam dropped to third with Rui Andrade taking over from Habsburg, while Robert Kubica was fourth for Prema.

Spirit of Race elected to put Silver-rated driver Pierre Ragues in for the starting stint and the Frenchman overtook the Bronze-rated driver ahead of him to establish the No. 71 Ferrari in the class lead.

Ragues moved into first by overtaking Iron Dames driver Sarah Bovy shortly after the 20-minute mark and set off to create a half-minute advantage.

Bovy’s fellow Bronze competitors Ben Keating and Paul Dalla Lana, both in Aston Martin Vantage GTEs, ran third and fourth.