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Rebellion Beats Ginetta to 8H Bahrain Pole

Non-hybrids lock out front row for 8H Bahrain as Rebellion leads LNT in qualifying…

Photo: Jose Bispo/JB Photo

Rebellion Racing claimed its second straight FIA World Endurance Championship pole position by edging out Team LNT in qualifying for the 8 Hours of Bahrain.

Norman Nato and Bruno Senna combined for an average time of 1:42.979 that put the No. 1 Rebellion R13 Gibson 0.144 seconds clear of the No. 5 Ginetta G60-LT-P1 AER.

Charlie Robertson and Ben Hanley offered the closest challenge for the Team LNT Ginetta squad with both drivers managing to beat Nato’s individual time.

However, Senna’s session-leading lap time of 1:42.396 negated the efforts of the two British drivers to set the Rebellion pair on top of the LMP1 order.

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s hybrid cars are set to occupy the second row of the grid with Brendon Hartley and Kazuki Nakajima out-qualifying their teammates Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez by less than a tenth of a second.

The average time achieved by Hartley and Nakajima in the No. 8 Toyota, which is running with a slightly larger success penalty than its sister car this weekend, was 0.863 seconds off the Rebellion figure.

Team LNT’s No. 6 Ginetta rounded out the LMP1 class order in fifth and will share the third row of the race grid with the pole-sitting car from LMP2.

Di Resta, Hanson Deliver United’s First Pole

Paul di Resta and Phil Hanson handed United Autosports its maiden WEC front-spot start after setting an average time of 1:45.357 in the British team’s Oreca 07 Gibson.

Di Resta was the only driver to set a sub-1m 45s lap among the first set of drivers before the silver-rated Hanson consolidated his co-driver’s benchmark with second-quickest time in the second batch.

This resulted in the United pair beating the second-placed Jackie Chan DC Racing Oreca of Will Stevens and Gabriel Aubry by a margin of 0.292 seconds.

Jean-Eric Vergne and Job van Uitert qualified third in the G-Drive Racing Oreca-based Aurus 01 that finished second in this year’s European Le Mans Series standings.

Their TDS-run car will start alongside the 4 Hours of Shanghai-winning JOTA Oreca on row two, while Cool Racing and High Class Racing will line up in fifth and sixth.

The 8 Hours of Bahrain gets underway tomorrow at 3 p.m. local time (7 a.m. ET, 12 p.m. GMT).

RESULTS: Qualifying

Daniel Lloyd is a UK-based reporter for Sportscar365, covering the FIA World Endurance Championship, Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, among other series.

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