The majority of the FIA WEC’s Hypercar manufacturers are set to test at Circuit of The Americas this week ahead of the six-hour Lone Star Le Mans race on September 1st.
The circuit will be in use for three days as BMW, Cadillac, Ferrari, Porsche (Penske and JOTA), Lamborghini, Peugeot and Toyota complete laps in preparation for the WEC’s first race in Austin, Texas since 2020.
One of the days has been booked by Michelin and will be used specifically as tyre test as part of the development of its 2025 Hypercar tyres, which will be used in the top class of IMSA and the WEC next year.
Of the teams listed for testing, Cadillac will run with both its full-season drivers Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn for three days (the third being the tyre test). But they will not steer their usual #2 V-Series.R used in the WEC.
Instead, they will drive the #01 Cadillac V-Series.R — the Ganassi-prepped chassis most recently used in securing runner-up at Watkins Glen — that will be crewed by members of the Chip Ganassi Racing 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, #01 Cadillac V-Series.R crew in IMSA GTP will switch 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 its plans for the test. It too will utilise a US-based chassis.
“We’re using the US 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 US 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 tyre 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.
“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.”
And for Lamborghini – which is running a single car in Austin – it will be an important test for the young programme. Its visit marks a return to CoTA for the SC63 after the Iron Lynx squad utilised the Texas circuit for early development testing with the car 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.
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 sea-freight its Tipo6-C to Texas for the race.
It’s a similar story at Proton Competition, which has utilised track time at race events to ‘test’ rather than go private testing due to its punishing schedule from competing in IMSA, WEC, ELMS and World Challenge Europe.
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 programme.
“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 DSC.
“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 programme, 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.”
Images courtesy of Lamborghini, IMSA & WEC
