Familiar clear and sunny skies greeted the 27 entries at Bahrain International Circuit this morning for the 60-minute Free Practice 3 session.
Once again the #14 Porsche Team Porsche 919 Hybrid was the clear leader as rapid Swiss racer, Neel Jani set a 1m43.571s lap to lead the chasing LMP1 pack by 1.138s. Jani’s team mate Romain Dumas looked as though he was going to eclipse that time on the final alp of the session but came across traffic in the final sector.
The #7 Toyota Racing entry of Alex Wurz, Stephane Sarrazin and Mike Conway placed second as Wurz set a best time of 1m44.710s in the Toyota TS 040 Hybrid.
There was more frustration for Audi Sport Team Joest as the #1 Audi R18 e-tron quattro driven by Tom Kristensen, Lucas Di Grassi and Loic Duval. The chassis suffered damage during yesterday’s FP2 session, which not only confined it to the pit box for the Free Practice 3 session but will also prevent it from appearing evenings qualifying. The #1 Audi will have to be scrutineered once more and only after this will it be granted allowance to race tomorrow in the 6 Hours of Bahrain. Lucas Di Grassi, as the quickest driver in the first two FP sessions yesterday must start the car tomorrow.
With track temperatures peaking at 33.3 degrees the LMP1 times were slightly slower than the cooler and more favourably quick conditions of yesterday evenings FP2 session. A five-minute slow zone period to retrieve the stranded #71 AF Corse Ferrari of James Calado also punctuated the FP3 running this morning.
In the LMP1-L class it was again Rebellion Racing who led the way with the #12 Rebellion R-One-Toyota entry of Nick Heidfeld, Nicolas Prost and Mathias Beche setting a best lap time of 1m47.436s.
The LMP2 class saw the SMP Racing squad start to fight back as they aim to protect Sergey Zlobin’s diminishing title lead in the #27 SMP Racing Oreca-Nissan. Nicolas Minassian set the fastest lap in the category on a 1m51.524s to beat Olivier Pla’s best of 1m51.638s in the G-Drive entry. The Ligier-Nissan coupe ended the session parked at the side of the traffic when a technical problem stopped Julien Canal.
The all-important qualifying session for the 6 Hours of Bahrain takes place at 17.00 local time this evening. You can follow all the action right here - http://live.fiawec.com/
CLICK HERE for the result from Free Practice 3
