The 2023 season of the FIA World Endurance Championship can definitively be put to rest with the Rookie Tests held today in Bahrain.
In the aftermath of the 8h in which Sakhir crowned the Toyota and Team WRT Champions among the drivers, some teams were able to run for five hours (two in the morning and three in the afternoon), with Robert Shwartzman and Lilou Wadoux sharing the wheel of the Ferrari 499P, while Valentino Rossi made his debut on WRT’s Oreca LMP2.
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
#38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche 963: Antonio Felix Da Costa, Will Stevens, Yifei Ye
SESSION 1: Porsche-Jota flies
The drivers took to the track early in the morning to begin their respective jobs over the 120′ available and among the Hypercars the best time was set by Will Stevens with Jota’s Porsche in 1’48″625 in five laps, to then leave room for Norman Nato, author of a 1’50″870 on his first outing with an LMDh.
Second at 0″819 is the Cadillac that Alex Lynn initially drove, obtaining the reference time of the V-Series.R, subsequently leaving room for Nicolas Varrone (1’50″048 his best time).
Alessandro Pier Guidi instead prepared Ferrari for Shwartzman and Wadoux. The Piedmontese was clearly the fastest of the trio in 1’49″560, followed by the Russian in 1’51″479 and then by the Frenchwoman who in 11 laps achieved a 1’56″056 as the best pass.
Fourth at 1″ from the top was the Porsche 963 of Proton Competition in which René Binder (1’49″704, the fastest) and Julien Andlauer (1’52″339) raced, while the official Team Penske car was sixth at + 1″8 thanks to the 1’50″464 of Laurens Vanthoor, who then handed over the wheel to Thomas Preining; the DTM Champion was good and his time was 1’51″615 in 26 laps.
The Peugeots finished in fifth and seventh place with Mikkel Jensen in the Top5, +1″4 from the leader, while Stoffel Vandoorne joined the young Malthe Jakobsen.
Finally, great work at Toyota where the GR010 is for four drivers. The official José Maria Lopez is following the young Josh Pierson (1’52″047 in 11 laps) and the Lexus duo formed by Jack Hawksworth (1’54″255) and Ben Barnicoat (1’51″728), this The last one is the fastest of the group.
Finally Job Van Uitert tried the Vanwall finishing +4″5 from the top.
Photo by: Shameem Fahath
#31 Team WRT Oreca 07 – Gibson: Valentino Rossi
In the LMP2 Class, the reference was set by Clement Novalak on the Oreca of Inter Europol Competition in 1’54″283, keeping Charles Weerts 0″685 behind him in the WRT #41.
Rossi, on the other hand, put together 38 laps, finishing third at +1″445, improving his personal time from the first outing by a handful of seconds and beating Oliver Jarvis’ United Autosports, who shares the task with Daniel Schneider.
Closing the list is Prema led by Mikkel Pedersen at +6″5; with him there are also PJ Hyett and Harry Tincknell.
In the LMGTE AM Class, Lorenzo Patrese set the best time at the wheel of the Richard Mille-designed AF Corse Ferrari, with which he set a time of 1’59″024.
0″4 behind the son of art we find Nicky Catsburg in the Corvette, with the Dutchman who then gave the seat to Antoine Doquin (2’02″179) and Timur Boguslavskiy (2’02″937).
Nicola Marinangeli placed third in the Ferrari #54 of AF Corse, 1″2 behind Patrese, followed by Christophe Ulrich (+2″4) with the 488 #21 which he already knows, having driven it in the past in the WEC.
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
SESSION 2: Shwartzman appears with the 499P
The three hours of the afternoon instead saw Shwartzman come out on top among the Hypercars in 1’48″559, thus becoming the fastest of the day, lowering Stevens’ reference obtained in the morning, while his partner Wadoux improved a lot, reaching 1 ’49″488.
However, the Porsche-Jota remains behind the Red with Nato at the wheel, trailing by 0″571, followed by the Proton 963 with Binder on top, 1″749 from the top.
Preining placed fourth with the official Porsche, lowering his limit and arriving within 2″ of Shwartzman’s time by putting together 56 laps.
Behind the DTM Champion we have the Toyota shared this time by Hawksworth and Barnicoat, only. The first achieved a 1’52″600, the second was faster in 1’52″134.
At Peugeot, Vandoorne placed the 9X8 sixth with a 2″4 gap from the top, while Jakobsen finished eighth at 3″. Simpson’s Cadillac is placed among them.
Van Uitert was still last with the Vanwall, improving his times and finishing +3″1 from the record.
Photo by: Shameem Fahath
#31 Team WRT Oreca 07 – Gibson: Valentino Rossi
In the LMP2 Class Weerts had fun with the WRT Oreca, setting a time of 1’54″302, but without beating the previous reference in the category set by Novalak in the morning, who was second at the wheel of the Inter Europol Competition #34.
Weerts shared the wheel of the 07-Gibson with Valentino Rossi, who applied his ever-present #46 on the side and achieved a best lap of 1’55″118 before handing over the seat to his Belgian colleague.
Tincknell put the Prema in third place (+1″2), followed a couple of tenths behind by Jarvis with United Autosports, while the second Oreca of WRT remained in the pits.
Among the LMGTE AMs, Patrese once again had the best of everyone with the Ferrari #83, lapping in 1’58″261 and improving his morning time by almost 8 tenths.
1″8 behind him is Marinangeli with the Ferrari #54, in line with previous performances, followed by Doquin’s Corvette (+2″7), while Ulrich finishes fourth in the Ferrari #23 and prematurely due to a exit at turn 7 which also caused the red flag for a few minutes with just under an hour to go.
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