After an extended winter break, the FIA WEC returns to CoTA this weekend for what would appear to be a rather significant event in the history of the championship, but not necessarily for the right reasons. The return to Austin has been welcomed by the teams and drivers, especially as the resurfacing work promises to make the circuit more pleasurable to drive, beyond that though it seems all the key storylines concern next season, rather than the run-in to Le Mans during this campaign.
Aston Martin announced it was ‘postponing’ its Le Mans Hypercar class entry with the Valkyrie earlier this week. It’s huge news that somewhat overshadows the racing this weekend in Texas, as those in and around the championship let the dust settle on the story and begin to ponder the longer-term ramifications.
This preview though, is not for next season, it’s for this weekend’s race, which was placed on the schedule unexpectedly late last year after the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo was cancelled, the Brazilian organisers unable to fulfil the commercial aspects of their contract. It’s a two-day meeting, with practice and qualifying all held on Saturday ahead of Sunday’s race.
LMP1 is down to just three cars, the two Toyotas and the single full-season Rebellion.
Missing are Team LNT’s Ginetta G60s, which are back in Yorkshire undergoing a full-service and rebuild following the flyaway rounds last year. The team feels it is necessary to skip this meeting and prepare for the car’s debut at Sebring next month.
This leaves a rather lacklustre looking LMP1 class. However, if the Success Handicap system puts Rebellion in with a chance to score a second win of the season then it could still be worth a watch.
Lest we forget too that before Aston Martin’s disappointing announcement that Rebellion too has made headlines in the run-up to this weekend, taking the decision to withdraw from motorsport after Le Mans this year. It means that the farewell tour for the Swiss-flagged team begins this weekend.
How does the handicap look? The #7 Toyota has been hit the hardest with a 2.7 second lap time penalty. The sister #8 has been hit by a 2.21 handicap while the Rebellion has had just a 0.55-second penalty.
Fingers crossed it’s a competitive race on Sunday.
The biggest addition to the grid for this weekend, of which there are two, making it a 30-car grid even with the Ginettas not making the trip, is Corvette Racing debuting its C8.R in WEC competition.
The American outfit will run a single car in Lone Star Le Mans for returning driver Jan Magnussen and Mike Rockenfeller, both of which will be keen to impress up against such a strong field of factory cars. The C8.R was strong in its global race debut at Daytona back in January, proving to be both fast and reliable, so there’s no reason to expect it won’t manage just fine in a six-hour contest here.
Will the BoP allow them to compete? The baseline values for this weekend will see the C8.R run with a 41.3 mm air restrictor and at a minimum weight of 1240 kg. Outside of the Corvette being added to the BoP table, no changes have been made since Bahrain in either GTE class for this one.
As for the title battle, AF Corse arrives with a spring in its step after its #51 crew of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi’s win in Shanghai was reinstated following an appeal to their initial disqualification.
This means that they are now in the title battle, and second in the standings, 15 points off Marco Sorensen and Nicki Thiim whose sole aim will be to make it back-to-back wins in the #95 Vantage and score a third win in five races this season.
The #51’s win in China hobbles the #92 Porsche duo of Michael Christensen and Kevin Estre on points, pushing them down to fifth in the battle, despite having three second place finishes to their names.
Porsche’s leading contenders are Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz in the sister car who sit third (18 points off the lead) after a win at Silverstone and podium in Shanghai.
The second addition to the entry comes in LMP2, with Elton Julian’s DragonSpeed team racing in CoTA, fresh from its Rolex 24 class win in January. Henrik Hedman, Colin Braun and Ben Hanley will team up here, reunited after winning at Rolex. They should prove to be contenders in this company.
The addition of DragonSpeed means there are nine entries in the class. High Class Racing sees the only notable change, the Danish team running on Michelin in the WEC for the first time after a successful test in Bahrain, and with a new race engineer, Franck Larue from Cool Racing.
It’ll be a big race for United Autosports, the team looking to build on its first WEC victory in Bahrain and close the gap even further to LMP2 championship points leaders, Jackie Chan DC Racing. As it stands Filipe Albuquerque and Phil Hanson sit just three points off Gabriel Aubry, Will Stevens and Ho-Pin Tung. Racing Team Nederland’s full-season pair of Giedo van der Garde and Frits van Eerd sit third.
In GTE Am there are a couple of driver changes of note. Bret Curtis makes his return to the WEC after a number of years, set to drive the #88 Proton Porsche, while Le Mans Cup champion Laurents Hörr joins Project 1 in the #56 in place of David Heinemeier Hansson, who will not return to the team this season.
The racing in Am has been superb this year, and the title race is now hotting up. The #83 AF Corse Ferrari and #57 Project 1 Porsche are tied for the lead in the title race, though it’s advantage Porsche as the #83 488 will run slightly heavier with a larger weight penalty.
Texan Ben Keating and Jeroen Bleekemolen also know how to win here, and along with Felipe Fraga will look to steer their newly-liveried Porsche (in Wynns colours now) to victory for a second time this season after an astonishing performance in the middle east last time out.
Sunday’s race is set to run from midday until 18:00 local time.
