Brendon Hartley qualified second at the Sakhir International Circuit overnight for the 8 Hours of Bahrain.
Hartley, who claimed his first World Endurance Series pole in nearly two years last weekend at the same circuit, was again given control of the No.8 Toyota Hypercar for the ten-minute session.
The Kiwi’s first lap was over half-a-second adrift of the benchmarker time set by Kamui Kobayashi in the sister Toyota.
Kobayashi failed to improve on his final attempt, while Hartley dropped to within 0.29s of his teammate but settled for second best.
“We’ve been strong all week on our side of the garage but Kamui delivered a very nice, clean lap so congratulations to car No.7,” Hartley said.
Kobayashi’s pole earns the No.7 car one additional world championship point and extends their margin to 16 points over the No.8.
What it means is the No.7 merely has to be classified in tomorrow’s season finale to win the drivers’ title.
For Hartley, he doesn’t wish to see their teammates run into any troubles on track. Instead, his goal is to see out co-driver Kazuki Nakajima’s last race with Toyota with a win.
“It’s going to be hard for us to win the championship unless the other car has a problem, and we don’t wish that on them.
“The goal now is to win Kazuki’s last race so that he can sign off his legendary career with a race victory.”
Jaxon Evans starts 27th overall and ninth in GTE-Am. Just over one second separated the No.77 Dempsey-Proton Porsche and pole in class.
Evans claimed a podium in last weekend’s six-hour race starting from a similar position, so he’ll be aiming for a repeat performance tomorrow.
