Toyota lock out front row for WEC finale in Bahrain
- Aaron Carroll
- 2 minutes ago
- 3 min read
Toyota locked out the front row for the finale, with the No.7 starting ahead of the No.8. Then came a Peugeot 3-4, ahead of the No.12 Cadillac. The championship leading No.51 will be seventh, with the No.83 just outside the top 10 and the No.6 Porsche starting dead last.
Qualifying
Unlike the LMGT3 sessions, the Hypercar teams have no restriction as to who can qualify the cars in either session. However, the sessions were still the same length, with this first one being 12 minutes.
Both BMWs, the No.35 Alpine and the No.50 and No.83 Ferraris all came back into the pits after their out laps in an effort to both scrub a set of tyres for the race, and also benefit from heat soak.
Kevin Éstre in the No.6 Porsche had a massive lock-up into turn 1 on his first attempt at a flying lap.
With six minutes to go the quick times started to come through. First it was the two Cadillacs, but they were quick toppled by the No.51 Ferrari with the No.5 Porsche and No.94 Peugeot slotting into fourth and third. Brendan Hartely in the No.8 Toyota went to the top briefly before Jean-Eric Vergne took that honour in the No.93 Peugeot.
The No.7 Toyota took its turn at the top then, before the No.007 and No.009 Aston Martins went first and second respectively.
With two minutes left though, the No.50 and No.83 Ferraris sat 11th and 12th along with the No.6 Porsche down in 17th. Most of the top 10 had pitted , along with the No.38 Cadillac in 13th. There were no improvements coming from anyone though, similarly to LMGT3, the tyres quickly fell off.
So the drop zone included the No.50 and No.83 Ferraris, the No.36 Alpine, No.38 Cadillac, No.35 Alpine, No.20 BMW, No.99 and No.6 Porsche. It was the two Aston Martin Valkyries that led the session, ahead of the two Toyotas and the No.93 Peugeot.
Hyperpole
As the sun set behind the horizon it was time for the final 10 minutes of qualifying in 2025. The No.15 BMW and the No.51 Ferrari were the first two cars out onto the cooling track.
The drivers once again took a few laps to get some temperature into the tyres, with the first competitive times coming with four minutes to go. Alex lynn went top in the No.12, ahead of the No.51 Ferrari before Hartely went top in the No.8 Toyota, with Malthe Jakobsen slotting into second in the No.94 Peugeot. The sister No.93 slotted into third at the hands of Vergne.
Kamui Kobayashi in the No.7 edged out his teammate by a tenth and a half to go top. Marco Sorenson in the No.009 went sixth. Hartely took to the pits with two minutes to go, deeming the best performance of the tyres behind him.
Ross Gunn in the No.007 went up to ninth, and that was all she wrote for qualifying.
It'll be a Toyota 1-2 for the start of tomorrows 8 Hours of Bahrain, with the Peugeots in third and fourth. 2025's qualifying hero Alex Lynn was in fifth in the No.12 Cadillac, ahead of the No.009, No.51, No.94 and No.5.
Tune into our website tomorrow for the race start at 10:00 GMT tomorrow.
