Ferrari Leads Toyota at Bahrain Halfway Mark

Ferrari driver James Calado led the 8 Hours of Bahrain at the halfway stage while under pressure from Kamui Kobayashi after a charging stint brought the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid into victory contention as darkness fell.

Calado’s No. 51 Ferrari 499P held an advantage of 2.024 seconds over Kobayashi with four hours of racing remaining, with Ferrari having regained the lead after briefly losing it to Hertz Team JOTA due to a pitstop error.

However, Calado’s co-driver Antonio Giovinazzi caught and overtook the No. 12 JOTA Porsche 963 of Will Stevens at the very end of the second hour and has held the lead ever since.

Approaching halfway, Kobayashi’s No. 7 Toyota emerged as the biggest threat to Ferrari’s lead after the Japanese driver made up ground with a charging drive having initially dropped back after encountering an issue on track.

Kobayashi had just completed a position swap with Toyota stablemate Brendon Hartley for fourth place when he lost speed on track, causing him to lose position to the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Robin Frijns, Jenson Button’s No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche and the second BMW of Dries Vanthoor.

After the issue was resolved, Kobayashi regained full speed and completed a series of rapid passes to regain fifth place behind Hartley.

The No. 7 car then rejoined ahead of its sister car after the third round of stops and behind Calado and the Porsches of Norman Nato and Michael Christensen.

Kobayashi first dispatched Christensen’s No. 5 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry with a lunge up the inside of Turn 14 before passing Nato at Turn 1 just a few minutes later.

While Kobayashi then set off in pursuit of Calado and closed the gap to within a second, he was unable to pass the British driver as the halfway mark passed.

Christensen, meanwhile, moved into third place after making use of lapped traffic in order to overtake Nato’s No. 12 Porsche around the outside of the first corner.

Nato then also lost fourth when Vanthoor’s No. 15 BMW overtook the Frenchman at Turn 14.

The No. 15 car is the sole BMW Hypercar entry remaining in the race after the sister No. 20 machine retired from a drivetrain issue that struck with Frijns at the wheel.

In LMGT3, TF Sport maintained its early advantage with Tom van Rompuy enjoying a lead of 24.612 seconds in the No. 81 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R.

James Cottingham held second in the No. 59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, with Richard Lietz completing the top three aboard the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Lietz fought his way past Francesco Castellacci’s No. 54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 to move into a provisional podium position, while the top five in class was completed by the No. 92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche piloted by Joel Sturm.

The No. 78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3, meanwhile, became the first retirement of the race when it stopped on track in the third hour.

Arnold Robin had just rejoined the race after the car had previously spent an hour and three minutes in the car to fix a rear suspension issue.