Conway Moves No. 7 Toyota into Halfway Lead

Mike Conway moved ahead of his Toyota Gazoo Racing teammate Brendon Hartley to lead the 8 Hours of Bahrain at the halfway point.

The British driver jumped into the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid at the two-hour mark and made up around six seconds on the sister No. 8 car during the third hour.

After several laps of running nose to tail, Hartley let Conway through at the end of the main straight, relinquishing a lead that the No. 8 Toyota had held since the start.

With four hours left on the clock, Conway led Hartley by 2.5 seconds with the two Toyotas running over a lap clear of their nearest Hypercar opposition.

The No. 94 Peugeot was already one lap behind when it dropped out of third place shortly before the halfway mark with an apparent gear-shifting issue.

That promoted the title-contending No. 36 Alpine A480 Gibson car to third, although the French team is relying on a significant setback for the No. 8 Toyota in order to capture the championship with its grandfathered LMP1 car.

Robin Frijns led the LMP2 class for Team WRT at halfway, with the Belgian running three seconds in front of Oliver Jarvis driving the No. 23 Oreca 07 Gibson.

Frijns’ co-driver Rene Rast moved WRT into the lead of the race when he out-braked United driver Phil Hanson two and a half hours in.

At the midway point, Hanson’s No. 22 Oreca sat third ahead of the championship-leading No. 38 JOTA Oreca.

The first of two Full Course Yellow periods shook up the GTE-Pro order, thrusting the No. 51 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo into the class lead by virtue of it pitting under the reduced speed period while most of its rivals came in just beforehand.

Corvette Racing also benefited from the FCY timing, although its No. 64 Chevrolet Corvette C8.R subsequently lost places to the No. 52 Ferrari and the No. 92 Porsche 911 RSR-19.

Nick Tandy regained one of the places when he planted the Corvette down the inside of Michael Christensen’s Porsche at Turn 8.

Ferrari privateer Iron Dames led the GTE-Am category after four hours, with Sarah Bovy holding a 45-second cushion over Henrique Chaves in the No. 33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage GTE.

Chaves, meanwhile, had only a second in hand to Paul Dalla Lana, whose NorthWest AMR crew is facing the uphill task of reversing a 20-point championship deficit at the final race of the year.