By alley - Nov 17, 2016, 10:31 AM ET

WEC: Porsche leads opening Bahrain session

The Porsche shared by World Endurance Championship leaders Neel Jani, Marc Lieb and Romain Dumas topped the times in first practice for this weekend's series finale in Bahrain.

Jani set the fastest time of the 90-minute session aboard the No.2 Porsche 919 Hybrid with a 1m42.107s. The time put the car three-tenths up on the second-place Audi R18 e-tron quattro in which Loic Duval set a best lap of 1m42.450s.

The second Audi was less than tenth further back in third position on a 1m42.515s posted by Benoit Treluyer

Kamui Kobayashi took fourth in the Toyota TS050 HYBRID he shares with Stephane Sarrazin and Mike Conway, who are the only driver combination that can stop Jani, Dumas and Lieb from taking the title.

Timo Bernhard took fifth in the second Porsche, while the No.5 Toyota was sixth in the hands of Kazuki Nakajima.

Fastest in LMP2 was the Signatech Alpine ORECA-Nissan 05 shared by Nicolas Lapierre, Stephane Richelmi and Gustavo Menezes, who sealed the class title at the previous WEC round at Shanghai.

Lapierre set a 1m50.966s to end up almost exactly two tenths up on Roberto Merhi, who has returned to the Manor ORECA line-up for this event.

Aston Martin blocked out the top spots in GTE Pro. Darren Turner went quickest in class in the Vantage GTE he is sharing with Jonny Adam at this race with a 1m58.735s. That put him nearly four-tenths up on team-mate Marco Sorensen in the sister car.

Richard Lietz was third for the works-backed Proton Porsche squad, just in front of Davide Rigon in the best of the AF Corse Ferraris.

Emmanuel Collard was fastest in GTE Am for the AF Corse Ferrari team.

PRACTICE ONE TIMES:

Pos	Class	Driver	Team	Car	Time	Gap
1	LMP1	R.Dumas, N.Jani, M.Lieb	Porsche Team	Porsche	1m42.107ss	1m42.107s
2	LMP1	L.di Grassi, L.Duval, O.Jarvis	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi	1m42.450ss	0.343s
3	LMP1	M.Fassler, A.Lotterer, B.Treluyer	Audi Sport Team Joest	Audi	1m42.515ss	0.408s
4	LMP1	S.Sarrazin, M.Conway, K.Kobayashi	Toyota Gazoo Racing	Toyota	1m42.865ss	0.758s
5	LMP1	T.Bernhard, M.Webber, B.Hartley	Porsche Team	Porsche	1m42.955ss	0.848s
6	LMP1	A.Davidson, S.Buemi, K.Nakajima	Toyota Gazoo Racing	Toyota	1m43.504ss	1.397s
7	LMP1	M.Tuscher, D.Kraihamer, A.Imperatori	Rebellion Racing	Rebellion/AER	1m46.366ss	4.259s
8	LMP1	S.Trummer, O.Webb, P.Kaffer	ByKOLLES Racing Team	CLM/AER	1m48.308ss	6.201s
9	LMP2	G.Menezes, N.Lapierre, S.Richelmi	Signatech Alpine	Alpine/Nissan	1m50.966ss	8.859s
10	LMP2	J.Canal, R.Gonzalez, R.Merhi	Manor	ORECA/Nissan	1m51.155ss	9.048s
11	LMP2	R.Rusinov, R.Rast, A.Brundle	G-Drive Racing	ORECA/Nissan	1m51.213ss	9.106s
12	LMP2	R.Gonzalez, F.Albuquerque, B.Senna	RGR Sport by Morand	Ligier/Nissan	1m51.581ss	9.474s
13	LMP2	T.Dillmann, G.van der Garde, S.Gelael	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier/Nissan	1m51.631ss	9.524s
14	LMP2	V.Petrov, K.Ladygin, V.Shaytar	SMP Racing	BR Engineering/Nissan	1m51.885ss	9.778s
15	LMP2	D.Cheng, H-Pin Tung, P-L.Chatin	Baxi DC Racing Alpine	Alpine/Nissan	1m52.080ss	9.973s
16	LMP2	M.Rao, R.Bradley, A.Lynn	Manor	ORECA/Nissan	1m52.506ss	10.399s
17	LMP2	N.Minassian, M.Mediani, M.Aleshin	SMP Racing	BR Engineering/Nissan	1m52.648ss	10.541s
18	LMP2	R.Dalziel, L.Derani, C.Cumming	Extreme Speed Motorsports	Ligier/Nissan	1m52.650ss	10.543s
19	GTE Pro	J.Adam, D.Turner	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	1m58.735ss	16.628s
20	GTE Pro	N.Thiim, M.Sorensen	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	1m59.123ss	17.016s
21	GTE Pro	R.Lietz, M.Christensen	Dempsey Racing - Proton	Porsche	1m59.420ss	17.313s
22	GTE Pro	D.Rigon, S.Bird	AF Corse	Ferrari	1m59.499ss	17.392s
23	GTE Pro	A.Priaulx, H.Tincknell	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford	1m59.772ss	17.665s
24	GTE Pro	G.Bruni, J.Calado	AF Corse	Ferrari	1m59.860ss	17.753s
25	GTE Pro	S.Mucke, O.Pla	Ford Chip Ganassi Team UK	Ford	2m00.371ss	18.264s
26	GTE Am	F.Perrodo, E.Collard, R.Aguas	AF Corse	Ferrari	2m01.550ss	19.443s
27	GTE Am	P.D.Lana, P.Lamy, M.Lauda	Aston Martin Racing	Aston Martin	2m01.552ss	19.445s
28	GTE Am	P.Ragues, R.Taylor, R.Brandela	Larbre Competition	Chevrolet	2m01.811ss	19.704s
29	GTE Am	M.Wainwright, A.Carroll, B.Barker	Gulf Racing UK	Porsche	2m02.195ss	20.088s
30	GTE Am	K.Al Qubaisi, D.H.Hansson, P.Long	Abu Dhabi-Proton Racing	Porsche	2m02.237ss	20.130s
31	GTE Am	C.Ried, W.Henzler, J.Camathias	KCMG	Porsche	2m02.496ss	20.389s