Barcelona’s upcoming 6 Hours race is scheduled for a Saturday that looks a little unusual, designed to help drivers who want to enter both the penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship and the conflicting Portimao GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS finale.
A draft weekend plan seen by Sportscar365 shows that the WEC’s LMGT3 and Hypercar categories will each run a standalone Free Practice 3 on Saturday, a first in the history of the series as far as is known.
Instead of holding qualifying sessions in quick succession, the LMGT3 and Hypercar qualifying will be spaced several hours apart, giving LMGT3 crews aiming for Portimao extra time to travel to the Portuguese venue.
The 3-hour Portimao race is due to start at 5:00 p.m. local time, giving LMGT3 teams roughly five and a half hours after the LMGT3 qualifying ends at 12:20 p.m. to make the journey (Portugal operates one hour behind Spain).
Following the completion of LMGT3 qualifying, the focus will shift to the Hypercar class, which will hold its own one-hour FP3 session shortly thereafter, prior to the top-class qualifying kicking off at 3:40 p.m.
The Friday timetable remains aligned with other WEC events this year, featuring two 90-minute practice blocks for each class.
The green flag for the race is planned for noon local time on Sunday.
The collision between WEC and the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup finale stems from the choice to replace Qatar’s 1812-kilometre event and the Bahrain 8 Hours with dates in Barcelona and Monza, in light of ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East.
BMW has already decided that Raffaele Marciello, together with LMGT3 runners Augusto Farfus and Dan Harper, will concentrate solely on Barcelona, while the other affected Hypercar entrants—Daniel Juncadella (Genesis Magma Racing), Jules Gounon (Alpine), Nicklas Nielsen (Ferrari AF Corse) and Marco Sorensen (Heart of Racing Team)—are expected to skip Portimao.
Juncadella and Gounon are thought likely to join Marciello in not traveling to Portimao, which raises the question of who will join Chris Lulham in Verstappen Racing’s Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo at Portimao.
There has been chatter that Max Verstappen himself could race for his eponymous squad as the GTWC Europe finale falls on a Formula 1 off-weekend between the Singapore and United States Grands Prix.
A complete draft timetable for the 6H Barcelona is shown below, though times may still be adjusted as the event approaches.
Barcelona WEC Timetable (as of Sep. 26, all times CET):
Friday Oct. 16
Free Practice 1 — 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m.
Free Practice 2 — 4:30-6 p.m.
Saturday Oct. 17
Free Practice 3 (LMGT3) — 8:50-09:50 a.m.
Qualifying (LMGT3) — 11:50 a.m.-12:02 p.m.
Hyperpole (LMGT3) — 12:10-12:20 p.m.
Free Practice 3 (Hypercar) — 12:40-1:40 p.m.
Qualifying (Hypercar) — 3:40-3:52 p.m.
Hyperpole (Hypercar) — 4-4:10 p.m.
Sunday Oct. 18
Race — 12-6 p.m.
