By alley - Nov 19, 2015, 10:01 AM ET

WEC: Porsche edges Audi in first Bahrain practice

Porsche edged out Audi at the top of the times in opening free practice for this weekend's World Endurance Championship finale in Bahrain.

Timo Bernhard ended up fastest in the #17 Porsche on a 1m42.800s, which was just 0.017s quicker than Andre Lotterer aboard the #7 Audi R18 e-tron quattro. The #8 Audi was third fastest with a 1m43.403s from Lucas di Grassi. Romain Dumas ended up just five hundredths behind with a 1m42.454s, which put him fourth position aboard the second Porsche.

Bernhard, Mark Webber and Brendon Hartley lead the championship by 12 points from the Audi trio Lotterer, Benoit Treluyer and Marcel Fassler going into Saturday's six-hour race.

The pair of Toyota TS040 Hybrids were fifth and sixth, with Sebastien Buemi leading the way on a 1m45.371s in the #1 car.

The top two cars in LMP2 were separated by just three hundredths of a second. Nelson Panciatici set the class pace in the Signatech Alpine ORECA-Nissan 03R with a 1m52.054s, which compared with Sam Bird's 1m52.086s in the best of the G-Drive Racing Ligier-Nissan JSP2s.

The AF Corse Ferrari squad was one-two in GTE Pro, with Toni Vilander's 2m00.135s bettering Davide Rigon's best in the sister 458 Italia by just under four tenths.

Aston Martin Racing led the way in GTE Pro with the Vantage GTE driven by Pedro Lamy.

FP1 TIMES

Pos	Class	Driver	Car	Time	Laps
1	LMP1	T.Bernhard, M.Webber, B.Hartley	Porsche	1m42.800ss	37
2	LMP1	M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer	Audi	1m42.817ss	34
3	LMP1	L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis	Audi	1m43.403ss	37
4	LMP1	R.Dumas, N.Jani, M.Lieb	Porsche	1m43.454ss	37
5	LMP1	A.Davidson, S.Buemi, K.Nakajima	Toyota	1m45.371ss	32
6	LMP1	A.Wurz, S.Sarrazin, M.Conway	Toyota	1m45.485ss	28
7	LMP1	A.Imperatori, D.Kraihamer, M.Tuscher	Rebellion/AER	1m50.149ss	29
8	LMP1	N.Prost, M.Beche	Rebellion/AER	1m50.150ss	25
9	LMP2	N.Panciatici, P-L.Chatin, T.Dillmann	Alpine/Nissan	1m52.054ss	40
10	LMP1	S.Trummer, P.Kaffer	CLM/AER	1m52.065ss	14
11	LMP2	R.Rusinov, J.Canal, S.Bird	Ligier/Nissan	1m52.086ss	34
12	LMP2	N.Leventis, D.Watts, J.Kane	Gibson/Nissan	1m52.686ss	34
13	LMP2	M.Howson, R.Bradley, N.Tandy	ORECA/Nissan	1m52.850ss	29
14	LMP2	M.Aleshin, N.Minassian, D.Markozov	BR Engineering/Nissan	1m53.164ss	32
15	LMP2	P.Ragues, O.Webb, C.Cumming	Morgan/SARD	1m53.374ss	36
16	LMP2	E.Brown, J.van Overbeek, J.Fogarty	Ligier/HPD	1m53.655ss	35
17	LMP2	G.Yacaman, L.Derani, R.Gonzalez	Ligier/Nissan	1m54.370ss	37
18	LMP2	S.Sharp, R.Dalziel, D.Hansson	Ligier/HPD	1m54.537ss	36
19	GTE Pro	G.Bruni, T.Vilander	Ferrari	2m00.135ss	34
20	GTE Pro	D.Rigon, J.Calado	Ferrari	2m00.505ss	33
21	GTE Pro	P.Pilet, F.Makowiecki	Porsche	2m00.774ss	32
22	GTE Am	P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda	Aston Martin	2m01.280ss	33
23	GTE Pro	D.Turner, J.Adam	Aston Martin	2m01.404ss	38
24	GTE Am	G.Roda, P.Ruberti, K.Poulsen	Chevrolet	2m01.417ss	33
25	GTE Pro	R.Lietz, M.Christensen	Porsche	2m01.932ss	30
26	GTE Pro	A.MacDowall, F.Rees, R.Stanaway	Aston Martin	2m01.933ss	36
27	GTE Am	V.Shaitar, A.Bertolini, A.Basov	Ferrari	2m02.124ss	31
28	GTE Pro	C.Nygaard, M.Sorensen, N.Thiim	Aston Martin	2m02.152ss	36
29	GTE Am	C.Ried, P.Long, M.Seefried	Porsche	2m02.363ss	33
30	GTE Am	F.Castellacci, R.Goethe, S.Hall	Aston Martin	2m02.921ss	34
31	GTE Am	F.Perrodo, E.Collard, M.Cressoni	Ferrari	2m04.367ss	35
32	GTE Am	M.Mapelli, K.Al Qubaisi, K.Bachler	Porsche	2m04.672ss	33