Jean-Eric Vergne and Nico Muller blocked out the top positions in the 90-minute FP1 session aboard the pair of Peugeot 9X8 Le Mans Hypercars, which will be making their third start in the series in Saturday's Bahrain 8 Hours season finale.
Muller, who is making his debut appearance with Peugeot this weekend, initially led the way with a 1m51.413s aboard the #94 9X8 before Vergne went nearly nine tenths quicker in the #93 with a 1m50.536s to knock him off the top spot.
The fastest Toyota GR010 Hybrid was more than a second off the ultimate pace with a 1m51.675s from Jose Maria Lopez in the #7 entry.
Alpine's solo A480 was a further tenth back on 1m51.796 set by Nicolas Lapierre.
The second Toyota brought up the rear of the Hypercar class courtesy of a 1m51.917s posted by Sebastien Buemi right at the start of the session.
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Peugeot's position at the top of the times in the first track running of the Bahrain event follows further testing for the 9X8 since the previous WEC round at Fuji in September and a Balance of Performance change.
The 9X8 has been given a 12kg weight break, while the Toyotas have lost four kilowatts or 5.4bhp under the latest BoP.
AF Corse's Pro/Am entry ended up fastest in LMP2 with Ferrari factory driver Nicklas Nielsen at the wheel of the team's Oreca 07. The Dane posted a 1m54.144s at the start of the 90 minutes.
The Signatech-run Richard Mille Racing Oreca took second position in class with a 1m52.335s from Charles Milesi, while the championship-leading #38 JOTA Oreca took third place in Will Stevens' hands on 1m52.389s.
Michael Christensen gave Porsche the top spot in GTE Pro. The Dane's 1m58.025s aboard the #92 Porsche 911 RSR-19 gave him a margin of two tenths over the best of the Ferraris.
Antonio Fuoco got down to a 1m58.261 in the #52 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo run by the AF Corse factory team, which put him just over a tenth up on Alessandro Pier Guidi's 1m58.398s in the sister car.
The second Porsche took fourth in class in Gianmaria Bruni's hands and the solo Corvette C8.R fifth with Nick Tandy driving.
Porsche's top spot follows two so-called black-ball changes outside of the automatic system to the GTE Pro BoP for Bahrain. Both Ferrari and Chevrolet are able to run less power at Bahrain than last time out in the WEC at Fuji.
Ben Barnicoat was quickest in GTE Am with the Project 1 Porsche team.
Second free practice for the Bahrain 8 Hours starts at 17:30 local time on Thursday afternoon.
Bahrain WEC - FP1 results:
| Cla | Nº | Driver | Car / Engine | Time | Delay |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 93 | Paul Di Resta Mikkel Jensen Jean-Éric Vergne |
Peugeot | 1'50.536 | |
| 2 | 94 | Loïc Duval Gustavo Menezes Nico Müller |
Peugeot | 1'51.413 | 0.877 |
| 3 | 7 | Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi José María López |
Toyota | 1'51.675 | 1.139 |
| 4 | 36 | André Negrão Nicolas Lapierre M.Vaxivière |
Alpine/Gibson | 1'51.796 | 1.260 |
| 5 | 8 | Sébastien Buemi Brendon Hartley Ryo Hirakawa |
Toyota | 1'51.917 | 1.381 |
| 6 | 83 | François Perrodo Nicklas Nielsen Alessio Rovera |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'52.144 | 1.608 |
| 7 | 1 | Lilou Wadoux Paul-Loup Chatin Charles Milesi |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'52.335 | 1.799 |
| 8 | 38 | Roberto González A.F.da Costa Will Stevens |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'52.389 | 1.853 |
| 9 | 9 | Robert Kubica Louis Delétraz Lorenzo Colombo |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'52.539 | 2.003 |
| 10 | 41 | Rui Andrade F.Habsburg Norman Nato |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'52.829 | 2.293 |
| 11 | 31 | Sean Gelael Robin Frijns René Rast |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'52.845 | 2.309 |
| 12 | 34 | J.Smiechowski Alex Brundle E.Gutiérrez |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'53.022 | 2.486 |
| 13 | 22 | Phil Hanson F.Albuquerque Will Owen |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'53.046 | 2.510 |
| 14 | 28 | Oliver Rasmussen Ed Jones J.Aberdein |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'53.512 | 2.976 |
| 15 | 45 | Steven Thomas James Allen Rene Binder |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'53.989 | 3.453 |
| 16 | 23 | Alex Lynn Oliver Jarvis Josh Pierson |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'54.124 | 3.588 |
| 17 | 10 | R.van der Zande Ryan Cullen S.Bourdais |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'54.542 | 4.006 |
| 18 | 35 | J-B.Lahaye Matthieu Lahaye François Heriau |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'54.971 | 4.435 |
| 19 | 44 | Miro Konopka Mathias Beche Richard Bradley |
ORECA/Gibson | 1'55.474 | 4.938 |
| 20 | 92 | M.Christensen Kévin Estre |
Porsche | 1'58.025 | 7.489 |
| 21 | 52 | Miguel Molina Antonio Fuoco |
Ferrari | 1'58.261 | 7.725 |
| 22 | 51 | A.P.Guidi James Calado |
Ferrari | 1'58.398 | 7.862 |
| 23 | 91 | Gianmaria Bruni Richard Lietz |
Porsche | 1'58.457 | 7.921 |
| 24 | 64 | Tommy Milner Nick Tandy |
Chevrolet | 1'59.459 | 8.923 |
| 25 | 56 | PJ Hyett Gunnar Jeannette Ben Barnicoat |
Porsche | 1'59.636 | 9.100 |
| 26 | 21 | Simon Mann Christoph Ulrich Toni Vilander |
Ferrari | 1'59.874 | 9.338 |
| 27 | 86 | Mike Wainwright Riccardo Pera Ben Barker |
Porsche | 1'59.968 | 9.432 |
| 28 | 54 | Thomas Flohr F.Castellacci Nick Cassidy |
Ferrari | 2'00.330 | 9.794 |
| 29 | 77 | Christian Ried Seb Priaulx Harry Tincknell |
Porsche | 2'00.392 | 9.856 |
| 30 | 46 | Matteo Cairoli M.O.Pedersen Niki Leutwiler |
Porsche | 2'01.462 | 10.926 |
| 31 | 71 | Franck Dezoteux Pierre Ragues Gabriel Aubry |
Ferrari | 2'01.545 | 11.009 |
| 32 | 60 | C.Schiavoni Matteo Cressoni G.Fisichella |
Ferrari | 2'01.666 | 11.130 |
| 33 | 98 | Paul Dalla Lana David Pittard Nicki Thiim |
Aston Martin | 2'01.906 | 11.370 |
| 34 | 88 | Fred Poordad Patrick Lindsey Jan Heylen |
Porsche | 2'01.985 | 11.449 |
| 35 | 777 | Satoshi Hoshino Tomonobu Fujii Charlie Fagg |
Aston Martin | 2'02.633 | 12.097 |
| 36 | 85 | Rahel Frey Michelle Gatting Sarah Bovy |
Ferrari | 2'02.706 | 12.170 |
| 37 | 33 | Ben Keating H.Chaves Jr. Marco Sørensen |
Aston Martin | 2'02.934 | 12.398 |
