Frantic Friday in prospect at Bahrain

The crucial qualifying day for the 2017 FIA World Endurance Championship finale has dawned at the Bahrain International Circuit as the first points of the weekend are ready to be taken today.

The LMGTE Pro, LMP2 and LMGTE Am categories are all perfectly poised to reach a tense climax on Saturday as the Bapco 6 Hours of Bahrain gets set to add new names to the WEC champions’ roll of honour.

Early indications suggest that Aston Martin Racing could in fact have a big say in the destination of this year’s silverware.

The British team, which is aiming to send off its successful and venerable V8 Vantage design with a final flourish, is not in title contention. However, the No.95 and No.97 cars have headed the times in Free Practice and threaten to take points from the title protagonists this weekend.

In LMP2 the Vaillante Rebellion and Jackie Chan DC Racing teams are going head-to-head with Bruno Senna and Julien Canal heading Oliver Jarvis, Thomas Laurent and Ho-Pin Tung by just four points.

On the schedule today is the final Free Practice session at 11.20 local time. This will be followed by the crucial qualifying sessions which begin at 17.00 with the LMGTE classes, followed immediately by the LMPs.

In addition to the practice and qualifying sessions there will also be a full timetable of races including the MRF Challenge, Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge ME and World Series Formula V8.