The second practice session of the 6 Hours of Bahrain saw a lull in action after the first flying laps were set. Teams changed their focus to long runs and race set up ahead of the endurance race on Sunday. The classes all finished with one team locking out the top two positions after the 90-minutes of track time. Toyota Gazoo Racing topped LMP1 whilst Vaillante Rebellion topped LMP2. Aston Martin Racing took great steps closer to giving the Aston Martin Vantage a perfect weekend for it’s final race as Ferrari locked out the top two in Am with Clearwater Racing and Spirit of Race.
Toyota, once again, had the edge on Porsche LMP1 Team as the #8 who had the fastest time of 1:40.095 was six tenths up on the fastest Porsche. After a delayed start, Brendon Hartley took the #2 out on track as one of the last to set a flying lap time. Knowing that the 1m40s lap time was the time to beat, Hartley managed to get the car fastest than the sister Porsche but the Toyotas still had a half a second advantage. It is possible that the Porsche team cars are focusing more on the race than qualifying today.
There was an incident of contact at Turn 11 between Earl Bamber in the #2 and Leo Roussel in the #26 G-Drive Racing and both have been called into the stewards office immediately after the session ended. At the time of publishing, a decision had not been made. More detail will follow when an update is available.
At the start of the session, the championship competitors in LMP2 were battling for fastest lap. It seemed the #38 Jackie Chan DC Racing car did not quite have the pace to get ahead of the #31 Rebellion and had to settle for second. A lap improvement from the #13 just before the halfway mark saw Rebellion take a one-two with a eight-tenth advantage on the rest of the class. Bruno Senna set a mega lap time of a 1:47.664 towards the start of the session that no one could improve on or beat.
Aston Martin would love to give the Vantage a victorious send off, and with the pace they have showed in today’s two sessions they are showing determination and a pace that could make that happen. Darren Turner started the #97 to a good start, locking in the fastest time early, but it was Jonny Adam who seemed to be more at one with the car. Hopping aboard the Vantage for just two laps, Adam set a 1:59.014 to give the team a comfortable three-tenth advantage on the sister car. Sam Bird in the first of the two AF Corse Ferrari’s was half a second further behind the 95 Aston.
Ferrari may not have had the advantage in Pro, but in Am the two Ferrari 488 GTE-running teams were top of the class. Matt Griffin slipped in a 1:59.773 to put the #61 Clearwater ahead of the then-leading #98 Aston Martin. A later improvement from the #54 Spirit of Race car saw Ferrari securing a one-two and completing a complete grid of one-twos across the board.
