The number eight Toyota Gazoo Racing GR010 Hybrid Hypercar of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa has taken pole position for the season-ending Eight Hours of Bahrain, and secured a bonus point in their pursuit of a second consecutive premier class drivers’ championship.
Hartley handled qualifying duties in the number eight Toyota, and he outduelled team principal/driver Kamui Kobayashi for pole position. Hartley’s lap of 1:46.564 was 0.489 seconds quicker than Kobayashi’s, and it earned his crew one bonus point in the standings.Hartley, Buemi, and Hirakawa now have a provisional 16-point lead over Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez and can clinch the Hypercar World Endurance Drivers’ Championship with a podium finish in tomorrow’s race.
Alex Lynn gave the number two Cadillac Racing V-Series.R its best WEC starting position by qualifying third, one place ahead of the number six Porsche Penske Motorsports 963 of Kevin Estre in fourth.
The two Ferrari 499Ps of Le Mans winners Ferrari AF Corse will have to come from the third row to win the race and keep their slim title hopes alive. Antonio Fuoco was only fifth fastest in the number 50 Ferrari, ahead of Alessandro Pier Guidi in the number 51 – and both were more than a second slower than the pole-winning Toyota.
Porsches occupied the next three places on the grid with Frederic Makowiecki in seventh aboard the number five Penske Porsche; Gianmaria Bruni was eighth-fastest in the 99 Proton Competition car, winning the privateer battle ahead of Will Stevens in the Team Jota number 38.
Peugeot’s struggles with the tricky 9X8 Hybrid continued as Paul di Resta was only able to get within two and a half seconds in the number 93 Peugeot; he was half a second ahead of Nico Mueller in the number 94, and both cars had issues in the heavy braking zone into turn one. Esteban Guerrieri was last in the number four Vanwall Vandervell 680, the only privately-constructed car left following the withdrawal of Glickenhaus Racing.
Meanwhile, in the LMP2 class, IndyCar Series rookie candidate and Daytona 24 Hours winner Tom Blomqvist won the pole position for United Autosports in the number 23 ORECA 07-Gibson, ahead of Alpine Signatech’s Charles Milesi in the number 31 ORECA, and Robin Frijns in the number 31 Team WRT ORECA.
LMP2 championship co-leader Louis Deletraz was only tenth-fastest in the number 41 WRT car; Deletraz, Robert Kubica and Rui Andrade will clinch the title tomorrow with an eighth-place finish in its class.
Sarah Bovy won the pole position in GTE Am aboard the Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR-19. The all-women’s squad of Bovy, Rahel Frey, and Michelle Gatting is one of 13 teams vying to be the winners of the final race for the GTE category of sports car racing. GTE Am’s final champion team, Corvette Racing, qualified fifth.
World Endurance Championship
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- Ferrari lock out top three grid positions for home round at Imola
- How to watch the Chinese GP, IndyCar at Long Beach and WEC at Imola
- Fifth-placed Cadillac disqualified 26 days after WEC’s season-opening race
EffWunFan (@cairnsfella)
16th November 2023, 4:23
A bit slow on the uptake from me, but as this article didn’t get much love I woujld like to add my congrats to the team, and particularly happy that Brendon Hartley continues to find success post F1.
I did not watch as much of this season as I would have liked, but I definately think it is moving in the right direction.