In the first of the two 90-minute free practice sessions car number 20 was third (1:45.510 min/38 laps), while car number 14 came sixth (1:46.356 min/39 laps). In the second session, held in the dark, car number 14 was fastest overall (1:43.375 min/41 laps) and car number 20 came third (1:44.457 min/44 laps).

The six-hour race in Bahrain is the seventh and penultimate round of the 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship. Qualifying will be held on Friday afternoon, the race will start on Saturday at 15:00 hrs with the majority of it being run in the dark.

Quotes after the free practice in Bahrain:

Alexander Hitzinger, Technical Director LMP1: “As we had seen on other circuits we have raced on before and as Neel proved today, again we have been very strong on a single lap with fresh tyres. But also, regardless of topping the time sheets, the sessions were good and we completed our programme.

Mark Webber (38, Australien): ”It was a pretty smooth day for the number 20 car. We got some good information and did the best we could with our race preparation. In our first year this is obviously still a bit of a weakness for us, we need to work on it more and more. But the guys did a good job and our car was very reliable.”

Marc Lieb (34, Germany): “I have done a long run to see how the car and the tyres behave over the distance. We have learnt a lot and we need to improve a few things, but we have had a better start here compared to earlier race weekends. Even if the test was a long time ago, it has made a small impact.”

For more quotes, please check the press release (Download, left column).