The second part of DSC’s Qatar 1812KM preview covers the 18-car Hypercar top class, which continues to dazzle as we power through the so-called ‘Platinum era’ of sportscar racing.
It’s storylines galore, as you’ll realise while reading through the team-by-team breakdown.
The big news? Aston Martin’s ear-splitting Valkyries arrive with Heart of Racing, Cadillac’s effort is growing with JOTA becoming a factory team in its 25th year of existence and Lamborghini has departed stage left. But to be honest, there’s intrigue in every garage for Season 13, which promises to be the most competitive yet.
Will Toyota find a way to keep its streak of Manufacturer titles alive? Can Porsche pick up where it left off in 2024? Will the French marques achieve a breakthrough result? Can Ferrari win Le Mans three times in a row?
We could go on, and on, and we will do so on these pages throughout the season as we travel the world with the FIA WEC, which is delivering the kind of grids and racing we’ve waited our entire lives for.
Strap in folks, it’s going to be a special season.
Aston Martin THOR Team
- #007 Valkyrie: Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble, Ross Gunn
- #009 Valkyrie: Alex Riberas, Marco Sorensen, Roman de Angelis
The wait is over, Heart of Racing’s debut as a Hypercar factory team with Aston Martin has arrived. For the 2025 campaign, it has entered two prototypes as per the new regulations and signed up a set of drivers that bring a mixture of valuable experience racing with AMR and the THOR team.
The Valkyrie is the only brand new Hypercar in the field, and the only non-hybrid, It’s powered exclusively by a screaming 6.5-litre normally aspirated V12, heavily modified by Cosworth from the roadgoing and track-only versions of the production model. In-person, the soundtrack is sublime. Fans planning to attend the race this year will almost certainly grin each time one passes by in anger.
This programme is very much a works effort, with a technical crew boosted by operational support from Multimatic Motorsports (including George Howard-Chapppel and Julian Sole in prominent and visible roles). However, the THOR element of the team name gives due credit to the resource that the Seattle-based team’s ownership has deployed in enabling the re-design of the Valkyrie platform and engine to Hypercar specification.
So what can we expect from this effort, particularly early on in the season? The Prologue was a success for the Multimatic-supported team. There were no major dramas, only minor new-car-niggles to work around. In total, the cars completed just over 1800 miles and pace-wise were not a million miles away.
However, expectations within the camp are being kept very realistic at this stage. The team feels that getting both cars to the finish would make for a successful trip to Qatar.
Want to read more on the Valkyrie? Check out DSC’s first ‘Butcher’s Block’ column of 2025, which looks into the tech behind Aston Martin’s new challenger.
Porsche Penske Motorsport
- #5 963: Julien Andlauer, Michael Christensen, Mathieu Jaminet
- #6 963: Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor, Matt Campbell
2024 was a huge year for Porsche Penske Motorsport and the 963 programme. After an underwhelming debut season in both IMSA and WEC in 2023, the German brand came out swinging last year, winning the Rolex 24 Hours, two WEC races, the IMSA GTP titles and the WEC Hypercar Drivers’ Championship. And that form looks set to continue into the new season, as PPM won the Rolex 24 for a second year in a row last month and has its sights set firmly on another standout WEC season.
What’s new for 2025? The 963 itself will benefit from a second ‘Joker’ update, this time focused on suspension.
“A large portion of the suspension architecture is the same,” explains Porsche Penske Motorsport’s managing director Jonathan Diuguid. “It’s more of a fine-tuning adjustment than a wholesale design change,” Diuguid adds. “With it, we expect the operating window of the car to increase, particularly when we’re using softer compound tyres. Even last year, we struggled with certain types of circuits. This addresses that.”
Porsche has also tweaked its driver crew for the WEC and its approach to the season. Fred Makowiecki and 2024 Drivers’ Champion Andre Lotterer are out, and find themselves at Alpine and Genesis respectively. In is Julien Andlauer, whose head-turning performances with Proton Competition last year in Hypercar were enough to see him handed a full-time ride as a factory driver.
Just two drivers will complete the season in each car. Andlauer and Christensen will share the #5 and reigning champions Estre and Vanthoor return to defend their crown in the #6. They will be joined, for Qatar, Imola, Le Mans and Bahrain by Jaminet and Campbell from the IMSA GTP side of the team. Their roles could expand further, but for now, it’s a limited programme.
Why adopt this new strategy? Is it purely a cost-saving measure or are there performance benefits to be gained by running two drivers at some of the shorter races?
“It was a tough decision,” Diuguid admits. “From the outside, it probably looks a bit hard and cold (to drop Makowiecki, Vanthoor and Cameron), but we took a wholehearted approach to what’s going to optimise our performance. That means taking advantage of our global team structure and utilising a tighter core group of drivers.”
What does all this mean for the season? Well, the expectations are and should be, sky-high for Porsche Penske in 2025. There’s a lot to play for: another Drivers’ title, a first Hypercar Manufacturer’s crown, and of course, a 20th overall Le Mans win.
The first step towards achieving these goals will be a strong outing in Qatar. It’s a circuit that is well suited to the characteristics of the 963 and produced a dominant maiden Hypercar victory for the programme. The track has been tweaked, but there’s no reason to suggest that the fast-flowing, billiard-table-smooth Lusail track will be a tougher nut to crack for the Penske crews.
The only real concern on the eve of the season comes in the form of an engine failure during the Prologue for the #6, the first ever for the programme. Porsche believes it has diagnosed the issue, but we will have to wait until the weekend to be sure everything is ship shape.
As for Balance of Performance, the Porsche 963 starts the season as the joint-heaviest Hypercar in the field along with Toyota’s GR010 HYBRID at 1064 kg. Its max power below 250 kph is 508 KW and the car has been permitted a 1 per cent gain after 250.
Toyota Gazoo Racing
- #7 GR010 Hybrid: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries
- #8 GR010 Hybrid: Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa
Is Toyota Gazoo Racing still the team to beat in 2025? After winning the Manufacturers’ title in 2024 off the back of three wins and two podiums, you’d have to be bold to bet against the Japanese OEM and its trusty GR010s, as it looks to add more wins and titles to its WEC roll of honour.
For WEC Season 13, Toyota has opted for stability across the board. Both driver line-ups remain the same and the GR010 HYBRID as a package has undergone no significant changes for its fifth season of competition. The only visible change to the 2025-specification car is the addition of new mandatory LED panels on its side pods.
But that shouldn’t mean the team takes a step backwards. It has proven time and time again that it is capable of winning races on both pace and strategy when needed. That’s not to say there were not blots of ink on the copybook – Le Mans was a disappointment and the #7 crew’s retirements in Fuji and Bahrain proved costly. However, looking at the bigger picture, even after Porsche’s surge in 2024 and Ferrari’s second straight Le Mans triumph, Toyota still found a way to stay in title contention throughout the season; experience counts in this game!
Like 2024, the key will be how the teams around Toyota fare. We all know TGR is a world-class race team and that its driver crews can go toe-to-toe with anyone else in the field. The question is, will we see additional manufacturers such as BMW, Alpine and Cadillac find a way to challenge the established order? If the competition continues to take steps forward then Toyota will have to work harder than ever before to win Le Mans and indeed the titles at the end of the season.
It all starts here, in Qatar, on a circuit which Toyota struggled to get to grips with 12 months ago. What will the 1812 km race at the Lusail circuit tell us about TGR’s prospects? The Prologue saw the team complete the most mileage and while the drivers all claim the team lacks outright pace, there is still time to improve before the race begins.
The GR010 HYBRID’s weight for the start of the season is identical to the 963, though its max power below 250 kph is 503 KW and the car will run with a 3.4 per cent gain after 250.
Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA
- #12 V-Series.R: Alex Lynn, Norman Nato, Will Stevens
- #38 V-Series.R: Earl Bamber, Sebastien Bourdais, Jenson Button
‘Hertz Racing Gold’ returns to the FIA WEC for a third season in 2025, but this time on a pair of Cadillacs. JOTA’s transition from plucky Porsche privateer to factory service provider for General Motors looks to be one of the most intriguing storylines to follow this season. So what can we expect?
Building up a relationship with a factory like Cadillac will take time. There will be bumps in the road as the Tunbridge Wells team pushes to meet the lofty expectations that GM has for its LMDh programme on the world stage. JOTA shouldn’t be underestimated though. It has real pedigree, knows how to win big races, and titles, and has an experienced band of staff that has proven on multiple occasions that no task is too big.
Under the leadership of Sam Hignett, David Clark and Dieter Gass, JOTA looks set to fly in this new chapter, though the expectation is that it will need time to get to grips with the V-Series.R before it can reach its full potential.
The V-Series.R, which starts the season as the lightest car in the field and will benefit from the joint biggest percentage of power gain beyond 250 kph, has been equipped with a new ‘Joker’ update to its electronics system for 2025. This, according to Cadillac’s technical lead Aaron Pfeifer, is not expected to improve the car’s raw performance. Instead, its aim is to optimise the car further and allow Cadillac and its works teams to gather better quality data when out on track. Will Cadillac see a big difference in Qatar? Unlikely. Over the course of a season, though, it has the potential to pay dividends.
The key is, that while JOTA is new to the car, the car is not new. It has race and title-winning pedigree in IMSA GTP over the past two years, though it failed to consistently fight up front in Hypercar with Chip Ganassi Racing. However, with that era over and Cadillac committing to an expanded effort with two strong driver line-ups, there’s a real opportunity to take some big strides.
In terms of drivers, it’s a strong mix of experienced racers from Cadillac and JOTA. The headline is that Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber, who previously shared the Ganassi WEC Cadillac, have been split across two cars. They are joined by Will Stevens, Norman Nato and Jenson Button from JOTA’s 2024 stable and Sebastien Bourdais from the GM side. Picking the stronger line-up is no easy task.
In 2025, with JOTA on board and a second car entered (by regulation), Cadillac looks to be in its strongest position yet. Is a big result off the bat in Qatar, on a circuit which last year suited the V-Series.R, possible?
BMW Team WRT
- #15 M Hybrid V8: Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, Kevin Magnussen
- #20 M Hybrid V8: Rene Rast, Robin Frijns, Sheldon van der Linde
There’s plenty of ‘new’ at WRT for its second season with the M Hybrid V8 in Hypercar. The liveries for both cars have changed and look vibrant, the driver roster has been tweaked with Magnussen in and Wittmann off to IMSA, and the car itself has been updated with an EVO ‘Joker’ focused on braking.
The Prologue test last week showed a lot of promise, with Frijns setting the fastest time of anyone across the four sessions in Qatar, but it’s early days and Vincent Vosse, in conversation with DSC during the test, wasn’t ready to get carried away just yet.
Like Alpine, BMW suffered through a tough start to the season in 2024 and a horrible Le Mans 24 Hours, before putting in some impressive performances in the second half of the season. Once the Belgian team got its head around the car and the ruleset the M Hybrid V8s began to look competitive. In 2025 it looks set to be a force to be reckoned with after a productive off-season and a head-turning trip to Daytona for the car in the hands of Team RLL last month.
Of the two crews, you’d have to say the #15 looks odds on to stand out, simply because Dries Vanthoor is anchoring it. The Belgian has managed to sustain pace from the car like nobody else in the programme to this point. If Marciello, who struggled at times last season, takes steps forward and Magnussen – with a newfound smile on his face – can hit the ground running, then the sky may be the limit here.
Title contenders? Perhaps not quite yet. But if BMW doesn’t at least score multiple podiums this year it would come as a surprise based on the perceived momentum building around the project.
Alpine Endurance Team
- #35 A424: Paul-Loup Chatin, Ferdinand Habsburg, Charles Milesi
- #36 A424: Jules Gounon, Frederic Makowiecki, Mick Schumacher
The Signatech-operated Alpine Hypercar team has the potential to become a real dark horse this season, after a strong finish to the 2024 campaign which saw it claim the A424’s first podium.
This year ‘Les Bleus’ looks to block out the memories from its atrocious double retirement at Le Mans and become a regular contender. To do this it has signed off a first Evo ‘Joker’ for the car, which should solve the reliability woes that cost it dearly at La Sarthe and negate the need for its adopted engine management strategy going forward.
“It’s the same engine, with internal parts and the turbo changed, but the base is the same,” Alpine Endurance Team boss Philippe Sinault told DSC. “Work started one minute after the DNFs at Le Mans. We are on time with this, we are ready to operate this package now. It’s a change that brings serenity.”
The Prologue showed encouraging signs after the A424s completed 684 total laps of the Qatar circuit without any major issues.
Beyond that, its driver line-up has been shaken up too, in an attempt to bring more balance to the roster. Matthieu Vaxivere has been moved into a reserve role, Jules Gounon has been promoted to a full-time seat and Fred Makowiecki joins from Porsche in the wake of Nicolas Lapierre’s transition to sporting director.
As for the general outlook, Sinualt is keen to temper expectations but acknowledges that the effort, as a whole, is in a far better place than 12 months ago.
“It’s going to be difficult early this season while we get up to speed with the package. And it’s hard because we start with a 10-hour race, it’s like starting the Tour de France with a mountain stage,” he said.
“The main priority is reliability, 100 per cent, and then we can look at results. If you ask me if we are ready to win regularly, I think today, no, we have to stay humble. We are not quite ready to fight with Toyota, Ferrari and Porsche yet. To start the year we want no DNFs and would like to fight for the top five if we do so.”
Ferrari AF Corse
- #50 499P: Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen
- #51 499P :Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi
Like Toyota, continuity is the order of the day at Ferrari AF Corse. It returns to the WEC in 2025 with the same car and the same set of drivers in pursuit of a third straight Le Mans win and a first WEC Manufacturers’ title in Hypercar.
No new ‘Jokers’ have been played for 2025, but the car has received significant attention over the winter. The Italian factory has focused on developing updates to improve the car’s reliability “in every area” according to the head of endurance race cars at Ferrari, Ferdinando Cannizzo.
“The car looks similar, there are no bodywork changes, no ‘Jokers’ in play for the season, but nevertheless we spent the last half of the 2024 season and the winter working. We have improved the reliability side,” he says.
“It was a big effort. There are several modifications under the skin that don’t count as ‘Jokers’. I would say 50 per cent of the modifications have been made for reliability, a quarter related to new regulation updates like the position panel and the last quarter on interventions that we did for performance improvements that are not changes to the car, but a better interpretation of our car to exploit aero, tyres and our potential.”
Over the past 12 months, Ferrari has been putting the 499P through its paces at a range of circuits – most recently last month in Qatar ahead of the Prologue – and completed around 15,000 kilometres over roughly 16 days. It’s an impressive total when you factor in the testing restrictions.
Will this, plus the updates to the car’s aero and brake cooling introduced last year, be enough for the Prancing Horse to consistently fight at the front?
All signs point to a better season if the team can prove it has learned from its strategic error at Imola that cost it victory in the changeable weather conditions and the aforementioned updates work as intended.
Despite the team failing to win a race outside of Le Mans again and the #51 crew only finishing in the top three once, there’s no sense of panic within the team. There’s a wide belief that retaining all six drivers for 2025 and the same driver combinations will pay dividends in the long run.
It seems there are 499 reasons to believe that everything will come together for Ferrari AF Corse in 2025. Anything short of fighting for another Le Mans win and the Manufacturers’ title will come as a huge disappointment.
AF Corse
- #83 499P: Robert Kubica, Ye Yifei, Phil Hanson
AF Corse’s third car is back for a second year, with a tweaked driver line-up and high hopes for success after a hugely encouraging debut campaign in 2024.
Robert Shwartzman is the name missing, he’s off to pastures new in IndyCar with PREMA this season. In his place is ex-JOTA racer Phil Hanson, who will team up with returning drivers Robert Kubica and Ye Yifei, who turned heads on multiple occasions last year.
After spending the 2024 season competing in both Hypercar and GTP aboard privateer Porsche 963s, Hanson may be new to Ferrari and the LMH ruleset, but does bring relevant top class experience to the team for his first season racing with AF. The big challenge, as you’d expect, will come early in the season as he adapts to his new surroundings and the 499P’s characteristics.
Luckily, he has two extremely talented drivers in the back of the garage and a world-class team to lean on. Ye took a step last year, in pace and consistency, and continues to look like a legitimate prospect for the factory cars in the not-so-distant future. Kubica needs little introduction and will be keen to add more big results to his sportscar CV.
It would come as a surprise to see the #83 crew match and better the factory cars throughout the season and fight for the Drivers’ World Championship, especially if it takes Hanson a significant chunk of the season to bed in. But they can legitimately hope to score multiple podium finishes and race wins if everything comes together.
Last year’s victory at Lone Star Le Mans and the car’s front-running pace at Le Mans before the car’s hybrid system failure showed what’s possible. The 499P is quick, consistent, and should be more reliable than ever before. It’s a deadly combination if this trio can unlock it.
Peugeot TotalEnergies
- #93 9X8: Paul di Resta, Mikkel Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne
- #94 9X8: Loic Duval, Malthe Jakobsen, Stoffel Vandoorne
Is Peugeot under the most pressure to deliver the goods this season? You can certainly argue that’s the case as it enters its third full season with the 9X8 platform.
The return in the results column to this point when factoring in the level of investment and development work that the car has undertaken hasn’t been good enough. And everyone within the team knows it.
To reach the promised land, like multiple other manufacturers in the class, Peugeot has updated its car with a new Evo ‘Joker’ that should improve the suspension, platform stability and aero and injected new energy into its driver roster with the addition of young Malthe Jakobsen.
Covering off Jakobsen first, who moves up to the top table from a reserve role after Nico Muller departed for a Formula E drive with Andretti. The young Dane has all the ability a his disposal to turn heads this year racing alongside five highly experienced drivers. He’s rapid every time he climbs aboard a prototype, mature beyond his years out of the car and is always keen to learn. He’s living proof that the ACO ladder works, having moved from LMP3, to LMP2 and now Hypercar with a manufacturer.
Turning to the update for the car, which follows the major redesign it underwent for Imola last year. Team sources during multiple conversations have made it clear to DSC that in testing at least towards the end of last year, the results were encouraging.
Will it translate into improved form this year? We may get an answer right away this week as the Lusail Circuit proved to be well suited to the previous iteration of the 9X8 in its final outing.
Proton Competition
- #99 963: Neel Jani, Nico Pino, Nico Varrone
Christian Ried’s band of plucky underdogs are back for another season in Hypercar, though this time as Porsche’s only customer team in the top class with the 963. The 2024 season was tricky for Proton Competition, but consistently fighting at the sharp end was never going to be a simple task in a field stacked with factory teams.
Nevertheless, there were flashes during the season. Spa in particular springs to mind, when Julien Andlauer made a series of incredible overtakes en route to the front of the field. It was a drive that was so spectacular that it became clear that day he was destined for the factory squad.
And it is that sort of performance that Proton’s new signees – ex-United LMGT3 racer Nico Pino and 2023 GTE Am champion Nico Varrone – will hope to replicate at some point during the campaign as they look to find a room at the inn of a works team in the future.
The pair are new to LMDh racing and will need to lean on the Neel Jani, who has plenty of hours behind the wheel of the car and a wealth of experience racing against factory teams in the WEC. It’s certainly a gamble for both of them to throw themselves in at the deep end like this, but they are both talented and should be admired for their ambition. And if they make the most of this chance, who knows where they’ll end up in the future?
With JOTA no longer running as a privateer, the four-car Hypercar World Cup has been disbanded and that subplot is gone. And with the #83 being run essentially as a factory car, it would be harsh to judge Proton on its ability to consistently beat AF Corse’s third 499P.
In 2024 Proton managed to finish in the top 10 twice and frequently found a way to mix in with the mid-pack. Matching that return, or improving on it this year would be something to celebrate.
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