Reigning World Endurance Champion Brendon Hartley has qualified the Toyota Gazoo Racing #08 on pole for tonight’s 8 Hours of Bahrain at Bahrain International Circuit.
While out of contention to defend his Drivers’ Championship, Hartley’s qualifying result brings Toyota to within nine points of Penske Porsche in the Manufacturers’ Championship.
“Big thanks to my team-mates for trusting me to do qualifying, and to the team as well for turning things around after a difficult free practice day,” said Hartley, who shares the #8 with Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa.
“I didn’t quite get the tyre temperature right on my qualifying lap, but I learnt from that and in Hyperpole I really put it together. The car came alive, and the lap felt really nice. It feels great to be on pole position for the season finale. We’ve had a challenging year on car #8 so we are pushing really hard to finish on a high and win the World Championship for TOYOTA GAZOO Racing.”
It’s the third consecutive year that Hartley has qualified on pole in Bahrain. His 1:46.714 was three-tenths quicker than de Vries in the Hyperpole Shootout, having earlier qualified fourth to progress into the top ten.
Further working in Toyota’s favour is that the #7, which was driven by Nyck de Vries in qualifying, was second fastest, locking out the front row for the Japanese manufacturer. Joining de Vries in the #7 Toyota is Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway.
The #51 Ferrari AF Corse was qualified by Antonio Giovinazzi and missed out on a front row start by just 0.043 seconds and will lineup in third, next to Proton Competitions’ Porsche 963 which was driven by Neel Jani.
The third row is made up of Drivers’ Championship leaders Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor, who qualified sixth and have their closest title contenders, the Le Mans-winning Ferrari #50 of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen. Fuoco put the Ferrari fifth, but only 0.015 seconds separates them from the team they trail by 35 points entering the round.
The second Penske Porsche of Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Frederic Makowiecki is seventh, next to Hertz Team Jota’s 963 in eighth.
The #15 and #20 BMW M Team WRTs complete the top ten, respectively.
Further down the order, Alex Lynn only managed one representative lap in the Cadillac V-Series.R he shares with Earl Bamber and Sebastien Bourdais.
The 8 Hours of Bahrain begins at midnight NZST and can be watched with a paid subscription to WEC’s official streaming platform.
