LMGT3 had the potential to deliver fireworks in its FIA WEC debut as a class in Qatar, but ultimately left everyone wanting more after a rather lacklustre 10-hour contest at the Lusail Circuit, dominated by Pure Rxcing’s Porsche.
By design, this is a class which places a great deal of responsibility and pressure on the Bronze drivers in each team. With safety cars generally in short supply and IMSA-style wave-arounds nowhere to be seen, more often than not a car’s chances of a strong finish are only as good as the pace and consistency of their Bronze early in each race.
Ultimately, in a Pro/Am formula where the primary source of income comes from the pockets of its Bronze drivers, this is sensible. They’re paying the money and they can make a difference through their talents. However, it doesn’t always make for a blockbuster race.
Imola though, has the potential to be a different story entirely.
All nine teams should feel far more comfortable and in sync after the freight issues ahead of the Prologue left the majority of the staff working in LMGT3 exhausted by race day morning.
It’s a radically different circuit too, that will test every driver’s mettle. Traffic management will be in the spotlight, as will tyre conservation. Goodyear expects we may see teams experimenting by running a small amount of camber on the left side of their cars and triple-stinting its yellow-labelled “Medium” tyres during the race.
This in itself will serve as a preview for the tyre strategy options at Le Mans, where Goodyear is also expected to nominate the “Medium”.
Looking back at Qatar though, perhaps the biggest takeaway was the performance from Alex Malykhin at Manthey Pure Rxcing. At this early stage of the season, he looks to be the class of the Bronze pack. In the race, he was rapid and laid the foundations for a pretty dominant performance from the Lithuanian-flagged Porsche. Manthey EMA’s 911 showed pace too but hit trouble and finished 15th.
Both BoP and success ballast will play a role in closing gaps up and down the order, the PureRxcing Porsche will carry success penalty weight for both the race win (15 kg) and for leading the Championship (another 15kg), but as Corvette Racing proved last season, if your Bronze is on form, you can find consistency. It will be fascinating, therefore, to see whether or not Pure Rxcing comes away from Italy with another big result and heads into the race at Spa as an early title favourite.
Aston Martin’s teams came closest to the Pure Porsche in Qatar after standout performances from Heart of Racing and D’station Racing, who finished second and third. It was an impressive result for a number of reasons, but principally because the car is so new.
Of the three brand-new GT3 cars in the class, the 2024-spec Vantage GT3 looks to be the strongest package so far. It appears to have delivered on its promise of solving its previous shortcomings in the drivability department and with such a solid engine to work around, it looks set to be a smash hit with customer teams for years to come.
The Vantages get a 12-kilo weight break for Imola (though offset by a 20-kilo success ballast for the Heart of Racing car and 10 for D’Station) but are also dealt a nine-megajoule per stint energy cut after Qatar together with a minor maximum power cut.
Elsewhere, it was a rather mixed weekend for the other new cars in Round 1.
TF Sport stole the headlines in Qualifying when Tom van Rumpoy snatched the first pole position for the new Z06 GT3.R. But the race was a different story for the British team. While there should be no alarm bells ringing at this point, the Corvette, like the Ford, does appear to require further work to iron out the early teething troubles.
On the plus side, TF will surely feel better prepared to race this time, having tested at both Imola and Spa between races, gathering precious set-up data for two key circuits and learning more about the platform.
Proton meanwhile, will look to build on its strong top-10 finish in World Challenge Europe’s curtain-raiser at Paul Ricard earlier this month as part of SRO’s hugely competitive GT3 field.
The eyebrow-raiser though is that the Mustang continued to suffer from bodywork issues, with the race at Le Castellet another outing which saw the car finish the race with pieces of its rear end missing. Ford must surely be working on a fix?
Of the remaining teams in the field, it will be interesting to see who emerges as a contender when Sunday comes.
United Autosports hopes for a stronger performance after its first race as a WEC GT team ended with 13th and 14th place finishes.
The team made it very clear heading into Qatar that this is a programme that came together extremely late, forcing the team and its new set of drivers to learn the ins and outs of the McLaren GT3 EVO in rapid time.
Therefore the expectation is that from Imola onwards this is a team that will close the gap to the front of the field. It too has been out testing in the gap between races.
WRT will also be hoping for more after its BMW M4 GT3s showed flashes of speed but failed to make the podium.
The #46 was the most impressive of the two during the race, finishing fourth, which bodes well for Imola where a legion of Rossi fans are expected to turn up to cheer on their hero. The #31 ended up sixth, scoring a nice haul of points. But Darren Leung, Sean Gelael and Augusto Farfus have grander plans.
Finishing between the pair of WRT BMWs in Qatar was the first of the two Vista AF Corse Ferraris, the #54 finishing fifth in part due to a strong performance from Thomas Flohr, who continues to improve race by race. The sister car ended up sixth.
That leaves us with the two marques that struggled to make an impact in Qatar, Lamborghini and Lexus.
For the Iron Lynx and Iron Dames, the weekend in Qatar was one to forget. This is a team that was used to running up front and eventually winning in the final days of GTE Am, but struggled to run in the leading pack.
And the Iron Dames’ performance was even more perplexing after a dominant run in the ELMS this past weekend with a Porsche – albeit with Rahel Frey in the driving seat for ELMS rather than Doriane Pin for WEC. Was this a BoP issue for the Lamborghinis? It seems that the powers that be think not, whilst they do receive an uptick in power and a change to wing angle in Italy it is certainly not a major change.
ASP too is used to fighting for wins on a regular basis, but looked lost at this early stage in its relationship with Lexus. The RC F GT3 is, of course, no spring chicken, but Vasser Sullivan’s continued success in IMSA’s GTD field should at least serve as an example for Jerome Policand’s French team to follow. They get a minor power boost for Imola.
A lot of its success going forward will depend on BoP, but there are clear gains to be made in the coming months through simply running the car. And the team knows it.
The full BoP table for LMGT3 can be viewed HERE >>
