Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Brendon Hartley and Kamui Kobayashi locked out the first two slots for today’s season-ending FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) – Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain race with the former, driving the number 8 car, edging in front of the latter in the number 7 car by half a second with a best lap of 1m 46.564s in yesterday’s Qualifying session.
Hartley and number 8 teammates Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa are in sight of the 2023 WEC Hypercar Drivers’ title and are only 15 points ahead of Toyota Gazoo number 7’s trio of Mike Conway, Kobayashi and Jose-Maria Lopez.
Should the number 8 team win, it would be their second consecutive title and Toyota’s fifth in a row. Also Buemi and Hartley would win their fourth title each, equalling Francois Perrodo in terms of total WEC championships won (Three GTE Am and one LMP Pro/Am.
But number 7’s Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez could conceivably leapfrog them to claim their third title, equalling Hartley and Buemi’s current WEC record.
“I’m trying not to think about it, honestly,” Hartley said at a post-race Press conference when asked about a prospective record-equalling fourth title.
“We can’t approach the race differently because of that. If we go for the victory, we go for the victory as hard as we can. And if we beat the competition tomorrow, including the two Ferraris, we win the championship.
“I think my approach won’t change. But, if we win it, you can ask me the same question all over again,” he added, laughing.
Alex Lynn, in the Cadillac Racing V-Series.R, will start third today after a time of 1m 47.265s with Porsche’s number 6 lining up fourth.
Meanwhile, Tom Blomqvist, driving the number 23 United Autosports Oreca, took pole in LMP2 Qualifying with a time of 1m 52.290s.
“We feel good, we look good,” he said at the Press conference with Hartley and Iron Dames’ Sarah Bovy sitting alongside him.
“We mainly focused on our race running throughout practice. We didn’t actually, really, focus too much on qualifying because the tyre degradation here is huge – we’ve seen that in years gone by – and you can start further back and if you’ve got a good, strong race car, you can gradually come forward.”
Charles Milesi, in the number 36 Alpine Oreca, will join Blomqvist on the front row after setting a best lap of 1m 52.561s.
The number 31 Team WRT Oreca will start in third with Vector Sport in fourth.
And Bovy, at the wheel of the number 85 all-female Iron Dames Porsche 911 RSR 19, will start the final LMGTE AM race tomorrow in pole after a best lap time of 1m 58.692s in Qualifying.
“Before I start, I want to dedicate this (pole position) to Deborah who is the founder of the Iron Dames,” she said, when asked about the lap time she had set, referring to Deborah Mayer, who developed the Iron Dames project which focuses on supporting and promoting women in motorsport.
“I’m super happy to have gotten this pole position. It was very difficult. Like all the categories here, we’re struggling with the choice of tyres, how to handle them. I have to give massive thanks to our engineers and mechanics who did an incredible job giving me a car that was really fast “
Liam Talbot, of D’Station Racing, will start alongside Bovy on the front row after a best lap of 1m 58.982s in his number 777 Vantage.
Ahmad Al Harthy in TF Sport Aston Martin’s ORT will start third while Takeshi Kimura in the number 57 Ferrari will begin in fourth place on the grid.
Ben Keating will start in fifth in the number 33 Corvette Racing C8.R.