Hypercar
- The tooth-and-nail fight for supremacy in the final round of the 2025 World Endurance Championship continued into the fifth and sixth hours at the Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain
- A likely four-way scrap for the lead between the two Toyota GR010 Hybrid Hypercars, the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P and the #009 Aston Martin Valkyrie essentially boiled down to a two-car duel between the #7 Toyota and #51 Ferrari
- That was after both the Aston Martin and the #8 Toyota were handed drive-through penalties in the fifth hour for, respectively, a Virtual Safety Car violation and overtaking under yellow flags
- Their misfortune handed the #7 Toyota a healthy lead at the front of the field, with Kamui Kobayashi taking over from Nyck de Vries and extending the crew’s advantage to 25-seconds
- The #50 Ferrari AF Corse is running off-kilter with the lead group in second place, but on strategy appears to be in overall arrears to the sister #51 machine which is still in prime position to take the title
- Antonio Fuoco passed the #94 Peugeot 9X8 of Malthe Jakobsen for third place just before the end of the sixth hour as the pair engaged in one of the battles of the race so far
- Jakobsen slipped back to fifth position as the #51 with James Calado at the wheel also pressured the Peugeot, slipping by as it looks to make inroads on the top three
- The second of the Peugeots runs sixth, as Paul di Resta climbed aboard for his second stint at the wheel of the #93 9X8
- Aston Martin is still in contention for its best-ever result and runs seventh and eighth; the #007 heads the #009, which is continuing to try to recover from its earlier penalty
- Alpine runs ninth with the Fuji-winning #35 A424 Hypercar piloted by Charles Milesi, Paul-Loup Chatin and Ferdinand Habsburg
- Completing the current top ten is the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963, in which young talent Laurin Heinrich is making his debut alongside regular drivers Mathieu Jaminet and Julien Andlauer this weekend
LMGT3
- The #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus extends and consolidates its hard-won lead in the LMGT3 category as Clemens Schmidt continues the strong work by preceding driver Jose-Maria Lopez
- Still second in LMGT3 is the #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 with Lin Hodenius taking over the wheel but 22-seconds in arrears to the Akkodis ASP Lexus
- The #92 title leading Manthey 1stPhorm Porsche looks set to clinch the LMGT3 title as they push through to third place and sit on the tail of the Iron Lynx Mercedes throughout the mid-phase of the race
- Riccardo Pera, Richard Lietz and Ryan Hardwick entered the race with an 11 point lead over the #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari. That entry falls back to eighth position after Mann receives a penalty for avoidable contact with the #33 TF Sport Corvette driven by Jonny Edgar
- The Heart of racing Aston Martin places fourth as Mattia Drudi aims to hunt down the Manthey 1stPhorm Porsche 911 GT3 to claim a podium
- The highest placed BMW is the #31 The Bend WRT entry as Timur Boguslavskiy completes a double stint and attempts to defend from a charging Daniel Juncadella in the delayed #33 TF Sport Corvette
- But the #31 loses five-seconds at its last pit stop after being adjudged to have contributed to an incident with the #33 TF Sport Corvette early in the sixth hour
Click HERE for the positions after six hours.
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