The majority of the FIA WEC’s Hypercar manufacturers are readying themselves for multiple days of testing at Circuit of The Americas ahead of the return of Lone Star Le Mans on September 1st.
The Austin circuit will be in use for three days this week, with BMW, Cadillac, Ferrari, Porsche (Penske and JOTA), Lamborghini, Peugeot and Toyota all travelling to the venue to complete laps in preparation for what will be the WEC’s first race in Texas since 2020.
Beyond performance testing, the third day has been booked by Michelin and will be used specifically as tire test as part of the development of its 2025 Hypercar rubber, which will be used in the top class of IMSA and the WEC.
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Of the teams listed for track time, Cadillac has confirmed that Ganassi will run with both its full-season WEC drivers Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn over the three days. But the duo will not steer their usual No. 2 V-Series.R chassis currently being used in the world championship.
Instead, they will drive the No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R ‒ the Ganassi-prepped IMSA chassis most recently used in securing runner-up at Watkins Glen ‒ which will be crewed by members of the CGR IMSA crew.
“It’s more cost-efficient and much easier to use the U.S.-based car than shipping our primary WEC car so far ahead of the race,” GM sports car racing program manager Laura Wontrop Klauser said.
As a result, No. 01 Cadillac V-Series.R crew in IMSA GTP will switch the chassis for the upcoming race at Road America on August 4th to the one last used at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Porsche has also shared some details about its testing plans. It too will utilise a US-based chassis for its WEC team to prep for the forthcoming six-hour race.
“We’re using the U.S. car because we have three functioning cars in the United States,” Jonathan Diuguid, the managing director of Team Penske told reporters at São Paulo.
“It will be crewed mostly by U.S. mechanics. We’re just bringing the WEC engineers and drivers for that event. It will be IMSA equipment there, and we will use the opportunity to roll out the two Road America race cars and go straight from CoTA to Road America.
“We are testing two days ahead of the Michelin test with one car, which will give the two WEC crews one day. Then we will do the Michelin test and we will take one driver from each crew to do the tire test.”
While the running this week will be useful for any drivers new to prototype racing at CoTA or in need of a refresher, there will still be plenty of unknowns heading into race week for the teams to tackle head-on. This is because parts of the circuit are set to be resurfaced between the test and the race to smooth some of the more prominent bumps.
“It’s feedback from F1 cars. They’re trying to smooth it out in certain areas,” added Diuguid.
“We don’t know (what the impact of the resurfacing will be). CoTA hasn’t been scanned from a simulator perspective for seven or eight years. It’s one of the circuits that changes year to year because of sinking and pavement changes.
“From a sim perspective, it’s one of the circuits we have the least amount of accurate data on. That’s why we’re spending time to go test there.”
Of the other marques, Lamborghini in particular will be keeping a close eye on the data gathered. It will be an important few days for the program as it marks a return to CoTA for the SC63 after the Iron Lynx squad previously utilised the circuit for early development testing at the end of last year.
The running will therefore give the Iron Lynx team a real yardstick for its progress with the car, which continues to take steps forward in both performance and reliability terms.
Three teams are not listed for track time this week, with Alpine, Isotta Fraschnini and Proton Competition not due to take part.
Isotta Fraschini has opted to sit out the test and send Tipo6-C to Texas via sea freight for the race.
It’s a similar story at Proton Competition, which roughout its time competing in GTP and Hypercar has utilised track time at race events to ‘test’ rather than go private testing. This is primarily due to the punishing schedule that competing in IMSA, WEC, ELMS and World Challenge Europe generates.
As for Alpine, while it will not use the summer break to complete track testing, it plans to use the time between races wisely ahead of an autumn and winter development program.
“The freight between São Paulo and CoTa means we will not have the opportunity to test in Europe,” Philippe Sinault, the team principal of the Alpine Elf Endurance Team, told RACER.
“But we have identified some subjects in terms of management of the engine and MGU and so on, and it will be time to work on that.
“It will be an intense autumn and winter program, because we have to summarise all our information and make some improvements. Maybe we will play some ‘Jokers’, we don’t know, but that will be the right time to prepare for 2025.”