Will Sunday’s Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of The Americas produce a sixth winner in six races in FIA WEC Hypercar? It certainly feels that way.
This weekend in Texas the competition has been hotter than the local climate, with the Hypercar field seemingly as close as it’s ever been. Throughout practice and qualifying multiple contenders have emerged, all quietly confident they’ll be in the mix tomorrow.
Ferrari has been the most bullish about its prospects. The double Le Mans winners expected to be competitive before FP1 got underway, the characteristics of the COTA circuit seemingly a good match for the 499P’s strengths.
And its high expectations, as it’s turned out, are not unfounded. The No. 51 and No. 83 combined for a front-row lockout this afternoon with rapid times in the 1m50s. The No. 50 crew — who are in the running for the drivers’ title — were not far off either, their fast time within half a second of the sister car.
Antonio Fuoco, who qualified the No. 50, admitted to RACER that he didn’t quite put it all together in the Hyperpole session, but added that he feels comfortable ahead of the race. The No. 50 will start fourth, with the other 499Ps around it and ahead of its championship rivals from Toyota and Porsche who could only muster times good enough for ninth and 14th respectively.
If either of the two cars that made it onto the front row wins tomorrow, it will be their first victory of the season. For the No. 51, the associated stats may come as a surprise. If Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi convert their first WEC Hypercar pole into a victory it would mark their first trip to the top step of the podium since the centenary Le Mans 24 Hours last year. To achieve that they’ll need to produce a metronomic run and hope team orders don’t come into play.
But Ferrari isn’t the only marque that impressed in qualifying. Yet again Cadillac was strong and will start third with its V-Series.R. It’s been a frustrating season for the American-flagged, Ganassi-run team, which all too often has shown pace on qualifying day only to struggle in the race.
With the No. 2 qualifying in the top four for a fourth race in a row, no questions remain about the V-Series.R’s ability to produce pace over a single lap. Instead, the spotlight is on race pace. In the post-session mixed zone, Alex Lynn appeared as motivated as ever to score a breakthrough result for the team.
“I said in the debrief to the team, ‘We’re good at having a good Saturday, well done, we’ve done it again, but let’s focus on banking a result tomorrow.’ That’s all we want, we want to nail a result on the table tomorrow night that we can be happy with, whether that’s P5, P6, a podium or a win,” he said. “We need to execute tomorrow because so far this season we haven’t done that, we need a result we deserve on home turf.”
[lawrence-auto-related count=3 category=1416]
What about Alpine? Charles Milesi was red hot in Hyperpole and put the No. 35 A424 fourth on the grid. For the first time, the French constructor looks poised for a big result, and just two races on from its disastrous outing at the Le Mans 24 Hours.
Both A424s could have ended up in the mix for pole too had Mick Schumacher not found himself blocked by other cars and distracted by a wasp in the cockpit during his qualifying run aboard the No. 36.
“I had a wasp and two Ferraris blocking me — not a smooth session,” he told RACER. “On my fastest lap, I had the No. 51 in front, and on my first push, I had the No. 83 in front.
“As for the wasp, it appeared on the lap I got blocked — it was flying around and ended up sitting on the windscreen for a bit. Then it came towards my face so I opened the door and slapped it and it flew out. I got yelled at! And I’ve never had that before… It was unfortunate because we had good pace.”
Then there’s BMW, for the first time since qualifying at Le Mans, WRT’s M Hybrid V8s look like they’ve taken a step forward in performance terms. They will start seventh and eighth and could find themselves coming away with the Bavarian brand’s best results of the season if everything goes to plan.
As the Hypercar field matures and the BoP process evolves, digging deep for hauls of points on weekends where everything isn’t going your way has never been more important. It would not be a shock to see either the No. 6 Porsche, No. 50 Ferrari or No. 7 Toyota find a way to win tomorrow because there are no safe bets anymore. It’s becoming more and more challenging to get a true read of the form book pre-race with every passing race weekend and the WEC’s top class is all the better for it.
“I think it’s still a very open race, with some weather which can come into play — thunderstorms, I think, there is still a chance,” Hypecar points leader Kevin Estre noted.
It’s a similar story in LMGT3. With Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin on pole for the first time and the three cars locked in the race for the title fourth, 10th and 16th, a repeat of the Manthey and WRT show that’s been stuck on a loop since Qatar feels unlikely here in Austin.
Championship leader Alex Malykhin, who put the Pure Rxcing Porsche on the second row of the grid, seemed as relaxed as Fuoco, despite the team being in the weeds of what he describes as the toughest race of the season so far.
“The pressure is on our rivals — they have a 25-point gap to close and will need to take more risks than us. If we score points, we will leave here happy,” he said. “This is the next stage in the title battle.”
With that, the stage is set for Lone Star Le Mans and all the ingredients are in place for another memorable race.