Toyota Keeps Lead After First Hour of Bahrain Finale

Photo: Charly Lopez/DPPI

Toyota ended the first hour of the Bahrain FIA World Endurance Championship finale with a comfortable lead at the head of the field.

Mike Conway in the pole-sitting No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid was untroubled at the start and gradually pulled clear of the sister No. 8 car of Brendon Hartley.

But a slower first pitstop for the No. 7 car meant it was the other Toyota that led at the end of the first hour.

The Toyotas maintained their qualifying advantage ahead of the brace of Peugeot 9X8s with Loic Duval keeping third place in the No. 94 entry.

However, di Resta lost fourth place in the No. 93 Peugeot towards the end of the hour when he spun exiting Turn 13, enabling the points-leading Ferrari 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi to profit.

Giovinazzi was then able to jump Duval in the stops to move up to third.

Behind di Resta, the second of the Ferrari 499Ps – the No. 50 car of Nicklas Nielsen – was on a charge and had moved up to sixth despite having failed to make Hyperpole.

The fast-starting No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R of Will Stevens briefly jumped ahead of the second of the Peugeots on the first lap but then fell back to seventh by the end of the first hour.

The first of the Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyries initially maintained sixth spot, but the No. 009 machine of Marco Sorensen was among the first to pit and dropped to eighth.

The other Ferrari in title contention, the No. 83 satellite entry of Phil Hanson, had initially made decent progress from outside the top ten but was unable to replicate Nielsen’s rise in the stops and instead remained ninth.

The class pole-sitting Lexus RC F GT3 of Arnold Robin also kept its lead in LMGT3 and initially pulled clear of the best of the Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos, the No. 61 car of Martin Berry. However, Berry was able to close on the No. 78 machine during lappery but was unable to mount a challenge.

But a slower stop for Robin meant he plummeted to third after the first round of pit visits, with the sister No. 78 car instead assuming the lead despite Petru Umbarescu handing over to Clemens Schmid.

While Berry made way for Lin Hodenius to keep second, and the No. 61 car continued to show the impressive pace that put both of the German manufacturer’s cars through to Hyperpole for the first time, Andrew Gilbert in the No. 60 entry plummeted down to eighth by the end of the opening hour.

It was a tough start to the race for the points-leading No. 92 Porsche 911 GT3 R as Ryan Hardwick continued to linger down in 17th place in class.