Toyota put an unusually high level of effort into the preparation for qualifying for the Eight Hours of Bahrain, as the outcome of the session would have an impact on the title battle.
The qualifying session on Friday evening, where a single point was on offer for pole position, saw Kamui Kobayashi beat team-mate Brendon Hartley to pole position.
Would Hartley have captured pole, the single point would have brought down the deficit between the two cars to fourteen, meaning the #8 car would have had a shot at the title with a victory in Saturday’s race. Instead, Kobayashi increased the gap to sixteen points, meaning a third-placed finish for the #7 car will be sufficient to win the championship.
With a lot riding on Friday’s qualifiying session, Toyota boss Pascal Vasselon explained that the team put an unusual focus on qualifying preparation throughout free practice.
“During the day there has been a lot of qualifying preparation,” Vasselon said. “This time, for the championship fight, the point for pole position was important.”
“It was important for car 8 to get these points because then they had a chance to win [the championship] if car 7 was third and car 8 wins, with the point of the pole position, they would have won the championship. Now car 7 just has to finish third and they will win the championship.”
Vasselon went on to explain that the two cars carried out qualifying simulation runs at every single practice session, which is a rare occurence: “This is why the two cars have done query sims every single session.”
“We never do that. Usually in our race preparation format, we have one quali sim, and that’s it. So this time there was a special effort.”
The qualifying simulations in practice, each of which were topped by Hartley, took place at the very start of the session.
“It was always at the beginning of the session,” Vasselon continued. “First because that is when you have little traffic. Secondly because then you can use the tyre set for the rest of the session and you can work on setup. So it was one set of new tyres for every session, very simple programme.”
Hartley ‘obviously’ wanted pole
Brendon Hartley was left disappointed after the session, which has severely diminished his hopes of capturing a third WEC world title.
With the crucial point going to the #7 sister car, the #8 crew can realistically only win in case of a retirement for the trio of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez.
“We’ve been strong all week on our side of the garage but Kamui delivered a very nice, clean lap so congratulations to car #7,” the Kiwi said. “My lap was relatively clean and there wasn’t a lot between the two cars, just a few little areas where we need to improve.
“We obviously wanted pole position because both cars know that the point can be crucial, so we were doing all we could. 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.”
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