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The final race of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship season is almost upon us. And, just like last year, both the Hypercar world championships – drivers' and manufacturers' titles – are to be decided in the Middle East.
From breaking down the practice long runs, we can get a gist and initial idea of who's looking quick, and who's got work to do overnight.
Practice 1 - Ferrari off to a slow start
While Aston Martin were quickest over a single lap in opening practice – Marco Sorensen in the #009 Valkyrie, with a 1:49.697 – they were mid pack at best in the long runs.
The long run honours in the opening practice session went to the #5 Porsche, a 01:53.506. However, Julien Andlauer's stint was only 6 laps long, arguably not a long run at all.
The next couple of long runs may be more representative. Paul di Resta's 14-lap stint in the #93 Peugeot was just a couple of tenths on average slower than Andlauer, but was over double the length of the Frenchman's stint.
Ferdinand Habsburg, too, had a good stint, 13 laps for the Austrian in the #35 Alpine.
Phil Oakley
Ferrari, widely perceived to be the pacesetters in WEC this season, were only eighth quickest in long run pace in FP1. Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 car was around 1.2 seconds slower than Andlauer. Ferrari were the sixth fastest team here, behind Porsche, Peugeot, Alpine, BMW, Toyota and Aston Martin.
The name missing there is of course Cadillac. They were the slowest manufacturer in FP1 in terms of long run pace. The #38 Cadillac was the fastest of the two, with Jenson Button, in his last professional race weekend, setting a 01:55.392 over 12 laps. If you're counting, that's almost two seconds slower than Andlauer.
Practice 2 - Ferrari come good, mostly
If Ferrari's FP1 long run pace was nothing to write home to Maranello about, FP2 will likely have put a smile on the Italians' faces.
The #50 car, in the hands of Miguel Molina, was quickest overall in the long runs in FP2. The Spaniard's 01:53.162, over 12 laps, was just a smidge faster than Button's 11 lap stint, with an average of 01:53.167. That's 0.005 difference between them.
The #93 Peugeot of Mikkel Jensen wasn't far behind either, only around 0.040 off.
For Ferrari and Cadillac, this marked a major shift in their pace compared to FP1. It's likely, of course, both were just going about their run plans and weren't worried or concerned about their pace. But the numbers definitely show an improvement, regardless.
The other two Ferraris in the field were further back in the field, but it's likely they'll find the same gains the #50 has in time for the race.
The #6 Porsche, one of the championship challengers, was behind the #12 Cadillac, another championship challenger. While Norman Nato's stint in the #12 was 13 laps long with a 01:53.883 on average to show for it, Matt Campbell's stint in the #6 was, again, short: just 6 probably-unrepresentative laps producing a 01:53.941.
Porsche Penske newcomer Laurin Heinrich's stint in the #5 car was longer – 12 laps – but was also slower, a 01:55.139. Hmm.
Aston Martin's pace was encouraging, with the #009 of Alex Riberas setting a 01:54.062. And the #15 BMW's 17-lap stint, set by Kevin Magnussen, was the joint-longest of the session, shared with its sister, the #20 machine. Magnussen set a respectable-but-not-blistering 01:54.486.
What does this mean?
It's hard to work out, looking at the long runs, an order from the practice sessions.
The graph above, then, shows a rough 'order'. Fastest is a team's absolute fastest from a single car in a single session, and average averages out the four stints from two cars in two sessions. In this case, Proton did not take part in FP2 so their average and their fastest is the same.
But, from the fastest stint, we can see Ferrari, Cadillac, and Peugeot are all very similar on pace, with all three of their stints from FP2. Porsche's fastest stint was around 3 tenths slower, from FP1 – but with the caveat that this was Andlauer's short stint so may be unrepresentative.
While the fastest long run stint gives us an order, the average changes it a little. In this metric, Peugeot are quickest, followed closely by Porsche and Alpine.
Ferrari and Cadillac's averages are very close together, separated by well under a tenth, but also slower than Peugeot, Porsche and Alpine. This may suggest their genuine race pace may be similar, but it may also be too early to tell.
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It's surprising to see Toyota so far back, in both average and fastest metric, the slowest manufacturer in the 'fastest' metric and the second-slowest in 'average'.
However, if we take a different metric – fastest 20% of all laps set over both Thursday practice sessions – Toyota come out looking a lot better.
The two Toyotas are second and third in this metric. It seems they ran a few long stints compared to other teams, who ran more medium-length stints. This would have pushed Toyota's average down in the long runs due to high tyre degradation. (Thanks to @putdorianedown.bsky.social on Bluesky for this observation - who does great WEC analysis himself. Check it out.)
A few other things from this metric: predictably, by way of being in the top 3 in both sessions over a single lap, the #009 Aston Martin is the quickest car. Peugeot are still right up there, which is encouraging. Ferrari and especially Cadillac fall back when looking at the data this way.
Either way, though, Toyota are upbeat, at a track in which they've enjoyed much success in the past.
“It all looks okay so far, but it’s just the first day and we know things will evolve over the weekend,' said Kamui Kobayashi, driver of the #7 Toyota and also team principal.
'We focused on long runs. There is still work to do to extract the most from our car, but we seem to be stronger than in previous races which is a positive sign.
'We know this track has been good for us in the past so hopefully we can qualify well and show progress in the race.'
Phil Oakley
Aston Martin's pace, both in the long runs and over a single lap, will be encouraging to the British manufacturer, on their first visit to Bahrain with the Valkyrie.
'Some decent results, but obviously it's not really the results so much we're too worried about at the moment,' said Aston Martin's Sorensen after the practice sessions had concluded.
'It's more actually making it to the race and doing some decent stints in the race. I think that's where our main focus is. Car seems decent over one lap at the moment, but we definitely still need to keep on working on the race pace.'
Whatever happens, it seems as though the fight for both championships is on. Let us know in the comments who you think will win the race, and each championship!
Feature image: DPPI / WEC
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