Audi, perhaps spurred by its loss at Sao Paulo, has come back faster that Toyota in qualifying for the World Endurance Championship Six Hours of Bahrain, with Allan McNish setting the best time Friday morning and teammate Marcel Fässler qualifying second.
McNish in the #2 R18 e-tron Quattro turned a lap of 1:45.814 at 114.394 mph .074 quicker than Fässler’s best of 1:45.888 at 114.332. Nicolas Lapierre’s best in the #7 Toyota TS030 was 1:46.254 at 113.959, was .44 seconds slower than the leading Audi.
McNish and Lapierre ran five laps each, trying to conserve their tires, which decay quickly in the high heat at Bahrain. Fässler did six, because he hit a plastic track marker on his first lap, bringing out a red flag with ten minutes left in the session.
This might have worked to his favor, because he stayed in the garage until McNish was done, and might have faced traffic. Instead, he went out as soon as the session returned to green and beat the traffic.
Fässler pushed hard, going off the track exiting Turn 14 which coated his tires with sand—one drawback to racing in the desert. Drivers said that it took a couple of laps to clean the tires after an off-track excursion because the fine sand got ingrained in the rubber.
Toyota went flag-to-flag at the prior WEC round at Sao Paulo; the car was faster than the Audis, and while less fuel-efficient, made better use of its tires to negate Audi’s advantage. Audi has found some speed at Bahrain, but with the high track temperatures at the Sakhir circuit (107 degrees Fahrenheit for qualifying, dropping to 95 degrees once the sun sets) tire wear could be a factor through the first half of the race.
Neel Jani in the #12 Rebellion Lola-Toyota was fastest of the privateer P1s with a lap of 1:47.638 at 112.468 mph. Nic Leventis was second in the #21 Strakka Racing HPD, .808 off the pace. The #13 Rebellion didn’t set a qualifying time as it had monocoque damage. The car is being rebuilt from a spare tub and will start form the back of the grid.
Stephane Sarrazin pushed the #44 Starworks car into P1 in the LMP2 class with as lap of 1:51.798 at 108.305, edging John Martin in the #25 ADR-Delta Oreca-Nissan by 0.487.
Aston Martin beat Porsche in GTE-Pro, with Stefan Mücke not quite breaking the two-minute barrier with his time of 2:00.234 at 100.662. Richard Leitz in the Felbermayr-Proton RSR .298 slower. Giancarlo Fisichella put the #51 AF Corse Ferrari third in class. Bahrain will be the first race for the new rules for Ferrari; the cars will be 15 kg lighter, but carry fiver liters less fuel.
AF Corse-Waltrip took the GTE-Am pole with Rui Aguas in the #61 Ferrari 458 offering up a lap of 2:02.812 at 98.549 mph, beating Fernando Rees in the #50 Larbre Corvette b y .441 seconds.
The Six Hours of Bahrain, Round Six of the World Endurance Championship, will take the green flag a 9 a.m. Eastern on Saturday, Sept. 29. A live stream and Timing and Scoring are available at www.fiawec.com.
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