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Stuttgart. Excitement increases in the lead up to the final round of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the Porsche Team, with the two 919 Hybrids, had a very positive first day of practice in Bahrain. The championship leaders, Romain Dumas (FR), Neel Jani (CH) and Marc Lieb (DE), topped the time sheets in both of the two 90-minute free practice sessions. Jani set the fastest lap of the day with a time of 1:39.817 minutes. This is only 0.081 seconds slower than last year's pole position time, and this is despite the fact that, according to the regulations, the Porsche 919 Hybrid can use eight per cent less energy per lap in 2016. The reigning World Champions, Timo Bernhard (DE), Brendon Hartley (NZ) and Mark Webber (AU), came fifth and second in the two sessions on the 5.412 kilometre long Formula One circuit in the Persian Gulf region. In this trio Hartley did the fastest lap in 1:40.272 minutes.

For Dumas/Jani/Lieb the six-hour race is all about the drivers' world championship. They have an advantage of 17 points ahead of the best placed Toyota. Finishing fifth in the race would still be enough for them to win the title, even if the number 6 Toyota won and also took the one point for pole position. Reliability has the highest priority for the Porsche Team. Weather conditions are highly likely to be stable with ambient temperatures of around 30 degree Celsius during the day and around 25 degree at night. Qualifying as well as the majority of the race will be held in the dark. At the penultimate round in Shanghai Porsche secured the world championship title for manufacturers for the second consecutive year.

Team Principal Andreas Seidl summed up the first day: "A good start for an important race weekend here in Bahrain. It was of key importance to have two trouble free sessions for both our cars. We are satisfied that we were able to achieve this and could work on our programmes as planned. Today there were qualifying simulations as well as tyre evaluation on longer runs. We are obviously quick over a single lap, on the long-runs, however, the competition appeared to be very close. We will now analyse all the data. Both driver crews are reasonably happy with their 919 Hybrids. We will, however, try to find further set-up improvements tonight."

LMP1 qualifying will be held on Friday from 17:30-17:50 hrs local time. The six-hour race starts on Saturday at 16:00 hrs (14:00 hrs in Central Europe).

Quotes after Free Practice: