Toyota leads in Bahrain as title-chasing Ferrari turns up the wick
Mike Conway in the pole-sitting #7 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing GR010 Hybrid leads the way after two hours of action in the season-closing Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain, with title-chasing Antonio Giovinazzi splitting the Japanese cars to climb to second and Lexus experiencing contrasting fortunes in LMGT3.
TOYOTA GAZOO Racing controlled the first two hours of the Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain as the pole-sitting #7 GR010 Hybrid Hypercar driven by Mike Conway initially led the 36-car pack
Conway headed the sister #8 Toyota with Brendon Hartley at the wheel, but the positions changed after the first pit-stop as the Japanese prototypes employed different tyre strategies, with the New Zealander seizing the initiative in the second hour
But Hartley’s pace dropped off dramatically midway through his second stint, enabling Conway to cut the deficit significantly from 14 seconds to nothing; Toyota instructed the pair to swap, allowing the Briton to re-take the lead
A charging Antonio Giovinazzi in the title-chasing #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P Hypercar similarly capitalised to slip through to second behind Conway
Chasing the Toyotas initially were the two Team Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 Hypercars started by Paul di Resta (#93) and Loïc Duval (#94)
But the Scot spun at the exit of Turn 13 as he hooked a kerb while negotiating traffic, costing him fourth place to Giovinazzi
As the first pit-stops played out, the Italian and Ferrari AF Corse crew took advantage to surge through to third courtesy of a decisive pass on Duval
That put the #51 Ferrari into prime position to seal the Drivers’ title for Giovinazzi and team-mates James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi. The trio entered the weekend holding a 13-point advantage over their nearest rivals, the #83 AF Corse crew of Phil Hanson, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye, which climbed from 12th on the grid up to ninth courtesy of a strong opening couple of stints by the Pole
Giovinazzi then went after Conway and with the third hour approaching, the pair were separated by just 0.8secs as a thrilling scrap for the lead played out
Hartley passed the baton on to team-mate Sébastien Buemi, who rejoined the race with a new set of Michelin tyres after the New Zealander had performed heroics to nurse his double-stinted rubber. That pit-stop briefly dropped the #8 to 14th before others followed
Completing the current top six is the #50 Ferrari AF Corse started by Nicklas Nielsen, who engaged in several thrilling battles in the opening exchanges
Aston Martin continued to enjoy a strong showing, with Marco Sørensen placing the #009 Valkyrie seventh ahead of the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R of Will Stevens – but the British ace was placed under investigation for an unsafe release after his first pit-stop
Rounding out the top ten are the #83 AF Corse Ferrari and the second of the Aston Martin Valkyries (#009)
The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 that still had a faint possibility of snatching both the Drivers and Manufacturers’ Hypercar crowns fought through from a lowly 18th-place start, with Laurens Vanthoor advancing to 11th
LMGT3
Iron Lynx is enjoying its strongest race of the season in the new-for-2025 Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 machine
A one-two position was held by the Italian-entered team in the second hour, as it hunts its first podium of the year in the finale
The #78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus with Arnold Robin aboard started the race and looked reasonably comfortable, but when differing tyre strategies kicked in after the first stop it was the Iron Lynx Mercedes pair that asserted their authority
There was then despair for the #78 Lexus just before the third hour, when Robin was pushed back into the pits due to a so far unspecified technical problem
After the second pit-stop shake-out, it was the sister #87 Akkodis ASP entry that assumed the lead as Petru Umbrărescu took over from Clemens Schmid, holding a 3.8sec margin over the #33 TF Sport Corvette with Ben Keating aboard
The #33 adopted a creative tyre strategy as Keating gained 15 seconds during his second stop by double-stinting his Goodyear rubber. The charismatic American survived two instances of contact in the early stages, the most serious of which was with the #36 Alpine Hypercar of Frédéric Makowiecki
Third and fourth ran the Iron Lynx Mercedes’, the #61 and #60 cars in close proximity with Martin Berry and Andrew Gilbert respectively behind the wheel
The #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin and #54 AF Corse Ferrari complete the top six in what is a close scrap for supremacy in the ultra-competitive class
From a title battle perspective, the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche that has an 11-point advantage over the #21 VISTA AF Corse ran in seventh as ‘Bronze’ driver Ryan Hardwick looked to complete his driving time early, with the chasing #21 Ferrari right behind in eighth as François Hériau employed a similar strategy
Iron Dames Porsche driver Célia Martin spun at Turn 11 after being squeezed by the #54 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Flohr
Martin suffered more drama following contact with the #31 The Bend WRT BMW of Yasser Shahin at Turn Two, but both continued largely undamaged
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