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***Ferrari extended its flawless Hypercar pole record at Circuit of The Americas on Saturday as Antonio Giovinazzi claimed his second leading qualifying performance in the past three seasons for the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Lone Star Le Mans round. Last season, Robert Kubica had taken pole position for AF Corse’s Ferrari 499P.
***The Hyperpole session finished tied, with Giovinazzi and Jack Aitken in the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R both recording identical 1:52.455s laps, though Giovinazzi earned pole by virtue of posting the time first.
***Interestingly, it wasn’t the first Hypercar pole dead heat in endurance racing — Shanghai in 2014 also saw a tie, when the No. 14 Porsche 919 Hybrid driven by Romain Dumas and Neel Jani posted a 1:48.300 average, mirroring the same mark achieved by Sebastien Buemi and Anthony Davidson in the No. 8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid during the era of two-driver averages.
***Aitken disclosed that this was his second career qualifying dead heat, the first occurring in a 2015 Formula Renault 2.0 Alps event at Imola, where he posted the same lap he recalls matching to the late Anthoine Hubert. ‘But I happened to be on the favorable side back then,’ Aitken told Sportscar365.
***Giovinazzi admitted he wasn’t aware of Aitken’s identical time until his engineer told him as he was nearly in the pit lane. ‘I knew I’d secured pole, but I wasn’t sure about the margin,’ he said. ‘I’ve been fortunate in this moment, yet sport requires a bit of luck when everything aligns; today happened to be that day. Let’s hope for a strong race tomorrow.’
***Aitken said pole wasn’t on his radar, and explained that a second push lap didn’t actually change the result after a brief power loss, adding it would have been improbable to improve the time. ‘I wasn’t aware of anything extraordinary,’ he stated about the dead heat. ‘I completed the lap and thought it might have shifted us from fifth to around third or fourth. I did find a tenth, which mattered, but looking back I’m a touch disappointed.’
***Giovinazzi conceded that his pole lap was not flawless. ‘I wasn’t fully content with the balance during qualifying, but it was sufficient to grab pole,’ he noted. ‘No other car improved during Hyperpole, so something else — perhaps wind or another variable — made the difference.’
***Aitken observed that many competitors failed to string together their best laps. ‘There are numerous spots I could have shaved a little more off, if I’m honest, but it was a solid lap and a solid qualifying session. I’m pleased,’ he said. Asked about Cadillac’s race plan, he replied, ‘We’ll likely kick off with single-stint runs and gauge how we feel; that’s part of tonight’s debate.’
***The gap among four Hypercar makes — Ferrari, Cadillac, Alpine, and Aston Martin — was under 0.050 seconds in Hyperpole, a margin widely regarded as a record.
***In LMGT3, Aston Martin achieved a milestone by securing a third straight class pole, a run that began at Le Mans with Mattia Drudi (No. 27) and continues with the Heart of Racing Team’s No. 23 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo crew of Kobe Pauwels (São Paulo) and Eduardo Barrichello (COTA).
***Barrichello’s fastest Hyperpole lap of 2:05.103 was disqualified for track limits at Turn 19, but his next-best time of 2:05.160 still secured pole. This gave Aston Martin a 73rd class pole in WEC and its first LMGT3 front-row lockout since last year’s COTA when Proton Competition claimed the front row with both Ford Mustang GT3s.
***Toyota Racing technical chief David Floury offered mixed feelings about the qualifying, noting their TR010 Hybrids will line up seventh and ninth, while suggesting that fifth or sixth might have been possible. ‘We didn’t execute perfectly, and P1-P4 wasn’t on the cards for us,’ he said. ‘Being P7 and P9 is disappointing, but it’s arguably our best qualifying result here since Imola.’
***Similarly, the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie squad experienced mixed fortunes in qualifying. After topping FP2 and FP3, Harry Tincknell finished fourth in the No. 007, a mere 0.05 seconds behind pole. ‘It’s heartbreaking to be so close, yet so far,’ he commented. ‘We knew other teams might be a touch more reserved in practice, but our qualifying performance was still solid and competitive.’
***In contrast, Marco Sorensen, piloting the sister No. 009 entry, was the slowest of all 17 Hypercars in the opening qualifying segment, citing changes to the car he described as ‘a fairly large modification that perhaps shouldn’t have been there,’ despite his optimism after practice.
***Genesis GMR-001 entries reached Hyperpole for the second time, following their Le Mans appearance, yet team chief Cyril Abiteboul expressed disappointment with eighth and tenth places. After testing at COTA in July, he remarked, ‘We believed we had a real chance to stand out here.’ He also noted that their one-lap pace typically favors the rookie outfit, as their ‘systems maturity is gradually catching up.’
***Andreas Roos, head of BMW M Motorsport, said he didn’t expect the WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 duo to challenge for the pole after their Interlagos win, noting that the focus in practice had been on race pace. They will start 11th and 13th. ‘Starting position isn’t everything, but you always want a fast car and a spot near the front,’ he commented. ‘That’s what we missed, so we’ll do some homework and aim for a strong race tomorrow.’
***He also suggested that cooler track conditions on race day might lead them to choose Michelin’s Medium Pilot Sport Endurance compound rather than the Hard option, depending on tomorrow’s temperature. ‘Right now it appears to be cooler, so Medium could be the choice.’
***American WEC rookie Gray Newell returned to familiar ground at COTA but finds the weekend tougher than anticipated. ‘It’s an intriguing quirk of my driving,’ said the Heart of Racing LMGT3 racer. ‘I haven’t spent long in this series, so I’ve accumulated muscle memory that’s hindering me here. Paradoxically, I feel somewhat at a disadvantage by having prior experience at this circuit, though the team is providing excellent coaching.’
***Newell racked up eight track-limit infringements during Friday’s opening practice, as he struggled with the stricter rules here compared with his prior COTA appearances in SRO America, but he escaped with minimal penalties.
***’I was collecting them at the exit of Turn 9, since SRO rules don’t count track limits there; they only flagged me once, and I assumed it referred to the apex, so I kept pushing,’ he explained. ‘The stewards weren’t thrilled, but they were lenient, and we avoided a heavy penalty—though I was barred from pushing the track-limit rule going forward.’
***A Russian flag returned to a WEC car for the first time in seven years after the FIA World Motor Sport Council rescinded the ban on drivers competing under the Russian or Belarusian flags in response to the 2022 war in Ukraine.
***The No. 91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo now carries the Russian flag for Timur Boguslavskiy, who had been competing under a neutral banner. The most recent Russian driver in the series before the Ukraine conflict began was Egor Orudzhev in 2019, driving a Ginetta G60-LT-P1 AER.
***Darren Leung of Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO aims to replicate a second consecutive COTA victory in two distinct GT3 cars after winning last year with United Autosports in a McLaren 720S GT3 Evo. ‘The rain was a bit of a godsend; it let me push the limits and hand the car in front,’ he told Sportscar365. ‘Hopefully there will be some rain again this year to add some spice—we could use a touch more chaos.’
***The season has been challenging for Leung, Augusto Farfus, and Sean Gelael in the No. 32 BMW, with their best result a fifth in LMGT3. Leung joked that Austin is ‘probably the ideal venue for a post-win party’ and that the BMW squad might still have a chance to succeed.
***Several prominent U.S. motorsport figures appeared in the paddock this weekend, including Cal Wells, a longtime CART veteran who now leads Legacy Motor Club as CEO. The team shares interests with JOTA Sport, with Knighthead Capital Management holding stakes in both outfits.
***PREMA USA’s chief Piers Phillips and operations head Graham Quinn visited on Friday for talks, with the former IndyCar squad believed to still retain a sizeable full-time staff in Indianapolis.
***IMSA President John Doonan is in attendance, in his role as the sanctioning body for Mustang Challenge North America, which closes its season this weekend, as IMSA maintains close ties with the ACO while work continues toward a converged top-class technical ruleset for 2030.
***Laura Wontrop Klauser, formerly GM’s sports car program manager, is here working as a WEC ambassador, helping with events, logistics and promotions, including at-track student engineering events, while Risi Competizione team owner Giuseppe Risi is also on-site.
***The Ford Raptor T1+, which scored a double podium in this year’s Dakar Rally, will lead the WEC’s ‘Lap of Honor’ during pre-race ceremonies tomorrow, with Logan Sargeant at the wheel. The M-Sport-built off-road racer has been on display in the paddock this weekend.
***NBA Hall of Famer Chris Bosh, who played for both the Toronto Raptors and Miami Heat, will serve as the race’s official starter and wave the green flag to signal the cars off the grid tomorrow.
***The 6 Hours of COTA gets underway Sunday at 1 p.m. CST, with coverage on the FIAWEC+ App globally beginning at 12:25 p.m. MotorTrend and HBO Max will carry coverage in the U.S., with Eurosport and TNT Sports in Europe and the UK, respectively and Stan Sport in Australia.
***Anthony Davidson returns to the world feed broadcast team, alongside Martin Haven and Graham Goodwin in the booth, with Bruce Jouanny and Shea Adam on pit lane.
***Radio Le Mans’ coverage on RS1 is being spearheaded by John Hindhaugh, who is on-site this weekend, along with Jonny Palmer, while the Speed City Broadcasting crew of Jonathan Green, Jon Massengale and Bob Varsha, plus the addition of Ryan Myrehn, are handling trackside public-address commentary.
Stephen Lickorish contributed to this report
