Nicolas Lapierre has set the fastest time in a quiet morning session at the Bahrain rookie test.
The Frenchman posted a time of 01:48:697 aboard the #36 Alpine A480-Gibson to top the two-hour session on Sunday morning.
Lapierre lead the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid by 0.168s, which saw its fastest time set by newly crowned world champion Mike Conway.
Conway shares the car with Team WRT’s Charles Milesi at the test. The French youngster’s fastest time in the session was some eight-tenths behind Conway.
The #8 Toyota, shared between Sebastien Buemi and seven-time World Rally champion Sebastien Ogier, was third fastest. Buemi set the quickest time, a 01:49:119, while Ogier set a 01:50:647 in his first outing in Toyota’s championship-winning Hypercar.
Sophia Floersch led the way in LMP2 in her test appearance with the #31 Team WRT ORECA 07-Gibson. The German posted a 01:51:221 to go 0.381s faster than the #28 JOTA ORECA driven by Malaysian driver Jazeman Jaafar.
The #21 DragonSpeed ORECA, driven by Sebastian Montoya, the son of Juan Pablo Montoya, was third with the #1 Richard Mille Racing Team ORECA fourth in the hands of Alice Powell.
Two LMP2 cars are not taking part in the test despite featuring on the entry list earlier: the TDS Racing-operated ORECAs from Racing Team Nederland and Realteam Racing are not taking part.
In GTE Pro, Ferrari was the only squad to complete running as the two Porsches did not post any laptimes.
Alessandro Pier Guidi set the fastest time of the morning in the #52 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo, posting a 01:57:658. The #52 car was second quickest in the hands of Simon Mann.
GTE Am saw quite a few changes to the field in a session that was topped by the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin Vantage AMR.
The two AF Corse GTE Am Ferraris, which had not been entered previously, are part of the test. Official rookie test nominee Laurents Hörr has been slotted into the line-up for the #83 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. Additionally, Robert Kubica has been added to the line-up for Iron Lynx’s #60 Ferrari.
Andrew Watson topped the morning running with a time of 01:58:403, with the #98 Aston Martin Vantage AMR second.
