Nyck de Vries leads with just 1 hour remaining in both the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 8 Hours of Bahrain, and the 2025 season of the series.
The #7 Toyota driver has a 30 second lead on Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari, and is in good place to take the race win, which if he can cross the line in the lead, will be Toyota’s first win this year in WEC. Their last winless year was in 2015, back in the LMP1 era.
They will have an updated, revised GR010 Hybrid for 2026, which has tested recently at Paul Ricard.
The #8 Toyota of Brendon Hartley is third, 8 seconds or so back from Nielsen. However, Hartley has an extra set of tyres to use at the end as he double stinted at the start,before handing over to teammates Sebastien Buemi and later Ryo Hirakawa, No other team did this, giving the Kiwi an advantage.
Third is championship leader Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari. If it finishes like this Pier Guidi, and his teammates James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi, will win the drivers’ championship, and Ferrari the manufacturers’ championship.
Fifth and sixth are the two Peugeots, with Malthe Jakobsen in the #94 ahead of Mikkel Jensen in the #83. Mid way through the sixth hour of the race, Jakobsen had a great fight with #50 Ferrari’s Antonio Fuoco, for third. Jakobsen defended well for many laps, frustrating Fuoco, with Peugeot possessing superior straight line speed while the Ferrari was faster in the corners, with more downforce being generated by the 499P.
However, Fuoco was able to eventually get by. Jakobsen then had a similar fight with Hirakawa in the #8 Toyota, again frustrating the Japanese driver with the Peugeot’s excellent straight line speed.
Seventh is the #7 Alpine of Charles Milesi, while eighth is the #007 Aston Martin of Harry Tincknell. The sister Aston Martin, the #009, earlier led the race and looked to be in the fight for a podium, but their hopes have faded since, unfortunately for the British manufacturer.
Over in LMGT3, Jose Maria Lopez continues to lead in #87 ASP Lexus. Lopez, along with his teammates Clemens Schmid and Petru Umbrarescu, have led for much of the race, but face an agonising final hour as they are short on fuel. They may need to make a stop in the last few laps for a very quick splash of fuel.
As it stands, they do not have the gap they need to make this stop and retain the lead. Second, just 11 seconds back, is #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche of Riccardo Pera. With this result, they will win the LMGT3 championship.
Maxime Martin sits third in the #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG, a further 4 seconds back on Pera.
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