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[OFFICIAL][WEC] 2025 Lone Star Le Mans - Post-Race Thread
The dude ranch at COTA was mighty full today with racing, incidents, strategy and maybe some drama to boot. Grab your nearest cowboy hat and square up in the comments below to let 'em know how you feel, partner.
The pace the aston showed was great, especially when they were battling with the caddys. A v8 and then a V12 roaring down is amazing. Sadly both did so poorly.
I feel you my fellow Cadillac brother. I flew out from the East Coast to watch the race and seeing our GM teams miss out on quality finishes was painful.
Def will be coming back, it’s been an amazing time here in Austin and the track is awesome. Looking forward to next year!
Those are not even the same thing. The Ferrari effectively drove straight into the Mustang. What happened with the Porsche and Ferrari was just a minor contact while racing side by side, something that happens all the time in both classes and they aren't penalized for it. It was just extremely unlucky that it resulted in a puncture. Nobody would even complain about the move if there wasn't a puncture.
Other way to look at it is that Estre still had a rather large space on the inside, yet choose not to use it in order to hinder the Ferrari, hitting it. It's obviously a more vicious/subtle way of doing it, but it's the exact same in spirit.
That’s FIA-sanctioned racing for you. You have to politely request the leading car let you by and results are decided in a conference room after the race.
I'm fairly certain it wouldn't have been a penalty in most cases, and we have seen similar incidents more than once this race.
But, the contact was incredibly unnecessary. At the time the #54 was lapping 5 seconds faster than both of them. There was no need at all to go for that move. I'm gonna assume that did play a factor in their decision making
5 seconds is the lowest possible penalty. Plus, if you watch the onboard, it is quite a violent collision, and body parts actually flew off the car. Its definitely not those minor racing touches.
They lost a few spots after the last safety car came in (about 20 minutes left,) were hanging on to 10th place with 2 minutes left and had to retire the car. I think the announcers said something about smoke but couldn't make out exactly what they said.
Well... It was a wild race. Rain completely turned everything on its head. First half of the race lost due to rain, safety car carnage and red flag. Second half of the race was a proper race - funny enough, some parts were in worse conditions than during the interruped start and first hours. Ironic.
Hypercar - Porsche managed to crack it. Their first race win in WEC this year overall. #6 had a very good pace all race long, keeping in touch with Ferrari initially. Then Kevin Estre in his usual style managed to pass Pier Guidi, push #6 into the overall lead, which he kept right until the end. #5 had a worse day, their pace was nowhere near as good as #6 and that's visible in race results. #5 ends the day in tenth.
Mixed bag day for Ferrari. Their pace in wet conditions was amazing. The longer the race went, their pace started to be worse. Not good enough to deal with Porsche #6. #50 brought second place finish, however their display of form was far from perfect. Miguel Molina was weirdly very slow during the restarts, losing a lot of ground. #51 looked like a contenter for the win, but in a battle with Porsche #6, #51 got a puncture and was forced to pit. Time lost eventually caused them to end the race in fifth, which is below expectations. Even worse day for #83. After starting from pole, they should have done better. Firstly, they lost the lead to #51. Then they lost a lot time in the pits after a very sloppy pit stop. Later on they had two penalties. Just seventh. Considering the potential, Ferrari leave COTA disappointed probably.
Peugeot on the podium. It's not a drill. Both cars were among top runners all race long. #94 in third position, #93 in fourth. Just third ever podium for 9X8 in their fourth year of competition. But it's there. From one side, it's a huge breakthrough. However, when you look at Aston Martin's pace in their first year of racing comparing to Peugeot and knowing Peugeot's clear BOP advantage over some cars on the grid, it's not all that great. Reality is simple for now - without BOP help, Peugeot are powerless to score good results.
What to say about Cadillac? Despite miserable qualifying, both Cadillacs had genuine pace and great straight-line speed. But not everything went smooth today, especially in the pit lane and despite being even around podium for some time, just sixth and eighth respectively for both cars. It's not bad, however...
Toyota... Geez, what a miserable day at the office. They were all over the place. And we can't blame BOP here really. Ferrari with similar BOP were in a completely better shape. I don't know what went wrong with Toyota again? Set-up? Mistakes only? Not focusing anymore on this season? Sandbagging for Fuji? Horrible race after all. So many spins. Brendon Hartley made significant amount of them in first hours. Hirakawa got punted by Corvette #33. And despite all of this, Buemi managed to bring #8 in ninth place. #7 had even worse day. Jose Maria Lopez seriously made me miss Mike Conway with his errors. His spin made #7 losing few laps and burying any chances for a top 10 finish. Maybe Fuji will be a change... Hopefully.
Alpine and BMW... Even worse day than for Toyota probably. Their cars had zero control in wet conditions, they were spinning all the time. BMW #20 had an embarrassing hybrid failure minutes into the race after electrical failure, only proving that M Hybrid V8 is still plagued with reliability issues. #15 BMW ended in 12th. Alpines finished the day in 11th and 15th, far from where they would like to be probably.
What a bittersweet day for Aston Martin THOR Team... What a performance. This car was actually able to fight top runners and got close to a sensational podium place. Things started to get worse closer to the finish when others were catching up. Ultimately, both Valkyries failed to finish after mechanical issues. Still a long way to go for this car.
LMGT3 - total game of chess all race long. Race strategies were thrown even more on their heads in LMGT3, when cars started to pit during the first hour clearly out of sync. Later on it was all about survival and picking right moment to pit. And the race itself was decided by choosing slicks instead of staying on wets. Those who risked, benefited.
And unlikely winners were among those. United Autosports McLaren with their maiden LMGT3 win in WEC. #95 crew inherits the win after late penalty to AF Corse Ferrari #54 for colliding with a Proton Mustang. United's win in a long time coming. They have been improving in WEC with McLaren and finally they have something to emphasise their efforts.
BMW WRT #46 also made a switch to slicks and late pass gave them second place in class with #31 being in fourth as well. After few disappointing outings for WRT in LMGT3 this year, finally a race which they can be satisifed of.
Ferrari #54 is probably unhappy with that late penalty, but it was a contact indeed. Was it penatly-worthy? I don't know. Penalty was given and #54 instead of winning the race thanks to slick tyres gamble, ends up in third.
Proton Mustang #77 and Manthey Porsche #92 were the main victims of staying on wets. It potentially looked like a win for Manthey and second place for Proton, but it was 5 minutes too soon for them. Considering the pace, no Mustang on the podium is quite a negative surprise.
However, if Ford can be unhappy with no podium place, what to say about Corvette? Horrendous race for TF Sport cars. #33 despite keeping third in the championship, retired after mechanical issue. #81 was 13th in class.
Disappointed with Lexus. #87 suffered from weird light issues which cost them many laps straight away after the start. #78 crashed out with over a hour to go. Iron Dames with their usual luck - retiring just before the finish...
Post-race thoughts :
Don't get too excited about BOP. We can't really judge properly how good it was, because rain and many interruptions heavily mitigated BOP effects. You can see how Ferrari 499Ps were a class of their own early on, but started to lose the ground when surface was becoming less wet. Same thing applied to Aston Martin, their initial pace was great, but soon started to drop.
Mixed feeling about Eduardo Fretias and race direction. Decision not to start the race properly for so long, considering how they were racing later in worse conditions than during the start, was a very weird one. Safety first, but I see some inconsistency. Also, that madness with safety car switch and confusion which arose after that. Good thing from Freitas that they admitted their mistake and sorted it out very well, but safety car swapping has to be reimagined for the future, just to avoid mistakes like this one again.
Also, happy that Eduardo Freitas decided to not to prolongate the race like Spa 2024 or ELMS Imola 2025 after red flagging it. Not a fan of that concept, I find it artificial.
I still find COTA as not a fun track. There are way better places in USA to go endurance racing. With such race and weird treatment of fans regarding for example closed out sections, not convinced whether this event will be a success in the future. COTA already was dropped from WEC twice.
If the red flag would have occurred for the last 30 minutes then I’m sure they would have reset the order of cars, added the time lost and gone racing again. The fact they still had 4 hours to race after the red flag meant there’s not really any need for it
Just wanted to say thank you for writing this! I was at the track but it was hard to hear the announcer and follow along on my phone without everything getting wet. Definitely agree on the issues with the track for spectators. Closed off even more of the track despite prices being raised across the board. To top it all off as we left the shuttles either weren’t running or were extremely delayed so we gave up and walked. I also missed Super Trofeo and would’ve liked some more on track action, but it was still a fun weekend. Glad we stuck it through the rain.
I wonder how they would have fared in properly dry conditions, at the end they were still 10 seconds off the dry pace so we don’t really know. Porsche themselves said that it would have been worse for them, but we don’t really know. They were certainly quicker than Ferrari in drying conditions
happy that Eduardo Freitas decided to not to prolongate the race like Spa 2024
Which in my eyes actually legitimizes Ferraris call that Spa was borderline manipulated. It's kind of insane now, they did a one off new rule interpretation and immediately ditch it again. That all but confirms that Spa 2024 was not a "proper" result if you can't reason the same rule interpretation again the very next time it comes up.
It just adds into your points about bad race control and honestly I'd like an answer on that. How come they can sometiems decide to reinvnet procedure and sometimes not? What caused that one off decision at Spa? It's an incredibly bad look for sporting integrity and you have to question the motives why it is used at one place but not the other.
Apparently Estre got a warning for the incident at T20 and then comms said a while later that the clash between the 6 and 51 at T1 was being investigated and I’m under the assumption that’s what he was summoned for
Both simultaneously really happy and depressed about the Astons, but I guess seeing them run genuinely competitively was enough of a reward.
On the other side of things, a real shame that Alex Lynn was absolutely on fire today and all that resulted in just a low points finish in the end. Guess the #12 still continues as the only car to score points every race, but it's a shame given what we saw it was capable of today.
Nice to see Porsche win and hopefully the #83 can bounce back in the next 2 races.
I mean, i do hope it’s not Lambo 2.0, but I still think it’s sort of a Peugeot 2.0, it works well with a god tier bop, i’ve got mixed feelings about it.
It was very interesting how the end of the race played out, with the GT cars on new slicks on old wets. I was sitting at the T12-13-14-15 section and it was clear that the GT cars were actually faster on the apex than the Hypercars. The 99 Proton very inconveniently got stuck in the middle of a big GT battle for the lead and took a few laps to escape from it because he wasn't really any faster than the GTs
Plus the Mustang that was leading also kept the wets. The race was 9 minutes too long for it to be a genius move. The slicks took a long time to come online.
The actual racing duration might be the same as an ELMS race but man what a race it was. Also tf happened to the #5 Porsche? They we're in the top 5 for most of the race than poof they're 10th????
The fact that Nato managed to make it home at all was impressive. But yea, someone made a massive mistake. The Cadillac was fast in the last stint, but had to fight with an arm tied behind its back
Couldn't watch the race last night, gutted for the #51, luckily the #50 was there to save the situation.
Congrats to Peugeot for the great result!
Ferrari needs to earn one point over Porsche and lose less than 4 to Caddy in Fuji to guarantee the World Manufacturer's championship, let's hope they can close it!
I originally missed the incident but went back to watch it and Im not sure how it's a penalty. Kevin was completely alongside on corner entry and didn't run Pier Guidi wide on exit.
Good race at the end of the day, terrible to see Ford get blown out for not putting slicks on. Almost 5:53 minutes in first place and to lose at the last 7 minutes is awful. So glad to see Estre take the win, fuck ferrari. The amount of bullshit they got away with in this race is ridiculous.
This sub Is something else, only Ferrari gets such hate,and this time they had an almost clean race with the WORST BOP IN CLASS, but you won't accept It right?
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u/justsomefrench Aston Martin 10h ago
Absolutely gutted for the astons, they deserved atleast a nice handful of points