The No.14 Porsche 919 Hybrid LMP1-H car took a second consecutive pole position in Bahrain this evening. Neel Jani and Romain Dumas split their qualifying duties in the 25-minutes session to combine an overall four lap average time of 1m43.145s, some 0.264s clear of title leaders Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson in the No.8 Toyota Racing TS 040 Hybrid.
Jani, who set a clear fastest time in FP2 and FP3 at the Bahrain International Circuit started the early run in the Porsche 919 Hybrid rapidly, peaking with a 1m41.897 to set the best ever LMP1 lap at Bahrain International Circuit. Romain Dumas then took over the cockpit after 11 minutes of the session and contributed a succession of quick laps to lower the average time and ultimately seal the overall pole position and the extra point.
In the LMP1-L class, the in-house Rebellion Racing qualifying battle was won by the #12 Rebellion R-One Toyota, as Nick Heidfeld and Nicolas Prost bettered the sister #13 Rebellion R-One driven by Fabio Leimer and Dominik Kraihamer by six-tenths of a second.
The LMP2 class again fell to G-Drive Racing as they claimed their sixth pole of the season. First, Roman Rusinov and then Olivier Pla again demonstrated the pace of the Ligier JS P2 coupe to lead their title rivals – #27 SMP Racing Oreca-Nissan, which was driven as usual in qualifying by Nicolas Minassian and Maurizio Mediani. The Russians second Michelin shod Oreca-Nissan placed third with Kiril Ladygin and Viktor Shaitar piloting the red, white and blue car to an average four-lap time just 0.080s slower than their sister car.
Aston Martin Racing claimed pole position in both the LMGTE Pro and Am classes.
Darren Turner and Stefan Mucke in the No.97 Vantage V8 claimed their second pole of the season in the Pro category with a 4-lap average lap time of 1:58.805, while the No.95 ‘Dane Train’ of Kristian Poulsen, David Heinemeier Hansson and Nicki Thiim remarkably, for a three-time race winner, claimed its first pole of 2014 in a time of 1:59.589.
The British-German duo in the No.97 didn’t have it all their own way, however. They were pushed to the final seconds of the 25-minute qualifying session by the GT championship-leading No.51 AF Corse Ferrari 458 Italia of Gianmaria Bruni and Toni Vilander. The Italian set the fastest GTE lap of the weekend so far (1:58.122), but a minor error on the Finn’s final lap meant that the average of the two best laps of the two drivers put them 0.27s behind pole.
Third in the class was the sister AF Corse car, the No.71 of Davide Rigon and James Calado, which recorded an average lap time of 1:59.226, followed by the No.99 Aston Martin of MacDowall, Rees and AlFaisal. Despite going quicker than at any time over the weekend so far, the two Porsche Team Manthey 911 RSRs appeared to struggle in qualifying and they finished in fifth and sixth in class, a less than favourable result for Championship contender Frédéric Makowiecki in the No.92. The Frenchman badly needs a win in Bahrain tomorrow to keep alive his title hopes.