Davidson sets best time as Toyota keep up pace

Toyota Gazoo Racing continued to showcase their blistering pace this evening as they once again finished ahead of world champions Porsche in the second free practice of the FIA WEC Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain.

Anthony Davidson in Toyota’s no. 8 Hybrid was the pace-setter with a best lap of one minute 40.095 seconds – more than two seconds quicker than the best time of teammate Kamui Kobayashi in the day’s first practice.

Davidson led teammate Mike Conway to another one-two classification in the night session, with Conway finishing 0.598 seconds behind in his no. 7 car.

Earl Bamber was the quicker of the two Porsches that were third and fourth on the timesheet. Bamber in the no. 2 drivers’ title-winning car was not far behind the top two, finishing 0.678s back.

Andre Lotterer in the no. 1 Porsche completed the hour-and-a-half practice 0.760s off the leaders’ pace.

All four were competing in the LMP1 class.

In the LMP2 category, Nicolas Prost of Vaillante Rebellion was the leading man with a best lap of 1:47.664 in his Oreca 07-Gibson.

Darren Turner steered his team’s Aston Martin Vantage to first place amongst LMGTE Pro runners with a fastest time of 1:57.014.

Keita Sawa of Clearwater Racing was the top performer in the LMGTE Am, taking his Ferrari 488 GTE to a best lap of 1:59.773.

Meanwhile, Rene Binder of Austria came away with the best lap of the day after a pair of collective tests in the World Series Formula V8 3.5, which is holding its ninth and final round over the weekend.

Binder had the best time of the day of 1:44.153 seconds with the cooler track temperatures in the evening session.

In practice two, Diego Menchaca was +0.576s behind the leader Binder. Mexican Alfonso Celis Jr., who is a Formula 1 test driver with Force India, was +0.835s off the pace in third.

Source: BNA