Hartley Beats Kobayashi to Bahrain Pole in Toyota 1-2

Brendon Hartley beat Kamui Kobayashi to the top spot in qualifying for the 8 Hours of Bahrain as Toyota Gazoo Racing locked out the front row of the grid for the FIA World Endurance Championship season finale.

Hartley produced a time of 1:46.564 in the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid that he shares with Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa, almost half a second clear of Kobayashi who locked up his car’s right-side Michelin tires under braking at one point during his run.

The result added an extra point to the No. 8 Toyota lineup’s Hypercar championship lead over the No. 7 crew, which now stands at 16 points.

Alex Lynn qualified third in the Chip Ganassi Racing-prepared Cadillac V-Series.R with a time of 1:47.265.

After recovering from a brief slide off-track through the downhill esses on his out-lap, the British driver posted a time that made him the provisional pole-sitter until the Toyotas charged through with six minutes remaining in the 15-minute Hypercar session.

Kevin Estre took fourth in the No. 6 Porsche 963 run by the Porsche Penske Motorsport factory squad, ahead of the two Ferrari 499Ps driven by Antonio Fuoco and Alessandro Pier Guidi.

The other factory Porsche qualified seventh in the hands of Frederic Makowiecki, with the German manufacturer’s customer cars from Proton Competition and Hertz Team JOTA taking the next two spots.

It was a challenging session for Peugeot which only qualified 10th and 11th, each car over two seconds off the pace. Floyd Vanwall Racing Team completed the Hypercar order.

In LMP2, United Autosports pilot Tom Blomqvist scored pole position for the category’s final race before its removal as a full-time WEC class next season.

The British driver, making his first WEC appearance since the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, steered the No. 22 Oreca 07 Gibson to a time of 1:52.290.

Charles Milesi came through in second for Alpine at a margin of 0.271 seconds, while Robin Frijns made a late improvement to vault the No. 31 Team WRT car into third.

However, WRT’s points-leading Oreca driven by Louis Deletraz only reached 10th in the 11-car field.

Bovy Takes Final Pole of GTE Platform

Iron Dames driver Sarah Bovy had the distinction of claiming pole for the final race of the GTE platform with her time of 1:58.693 in the No. 85 Porsche 911 RSR-19.

After Thomas Flohr and Ben Keating set the early benchmarks, Bovy charged to the top of the 13-car leaderboard with around four minutes to go and remained there until the end.

The Belgian driver was unable to improve on her best effort after she spun and continued at Turn 13.

Liam Talbot qualified second for his WEC debut in the D’station Racing Aston Martin Vantage GTE, three-tenths behind Bovy, while Ahmad Al Harthy was third in the other TF Sport-run Aston.

Keating ended up fifth for Corvette Racing, which secured the GTE-Am title two rounds early at Monza, with Kessel Racing’s Takeshi Kimura in fourth.

RESULTS: Qualifying