Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI
***Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s Alex Lynn best time of 1:39.601 in Friday’s second practice session ahead of this week’s FIA World Endurance Championship season opener in Qatar was some way off the best time seen in last week’s Prologue test, a 1:38.971 set by BMW’s Robin Frijns.
***Windy conditions were cited as one reason for the slower lap times compared to the Prologue, with the top speed figures on Wednesday being around 10 km/h down on those seen in last week’s two-day test across the board in Hypercar.
***Regarding the conditions, BMW driver Raffaele Marciello told Sportscar365: “It’s funny because the straight line speed is way lower because there is a headwind. I think we lost 10 km/h on the straight. We almost don’t [use] seventh gear anymore.”
***Speed trap data shows that Marciello’s No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 was clocked at 305.9 km/h (191.1 mph) with Dries Vanthoor at the wheel, with the car reaching 295.9 km/h (183.8 mph) during Free Practice 1. For comparison, the No. 51 Ferrari 499P reached the fastest outright Prologue top speed with 312.1 km/h (193.9 mph) and did 300 km/h (186.4 mph) in FP1.
***Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA is running under an American license this year that has seen the switch from the British to the U.S. flag on the team’s Hypercar entries. A Cadillac spokesperson confirmed to Sportscar365 that the move was made with the American manufacturer and primary sponsorship from U.S.-owned Hertz in mind.
***Heart of Racing Team’s two Aston Martin Valkyries are sporting the American flag but, according to the Qatar entry list, are racing under a British license. The WEC team is run out of a workshop near Silverstone, led by Multimatic’s George Howard-Chappell.
***A FIA spokesperson clarified to Sportscar365 that carrying a flag representing the country of the entrant is no longer mandatory.
***Heart of Racing team principal Ian James confirmed the team has two complete spare cars, in addition to its three Valkyrie race cars, with one spare each deployed to the WEC and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship events this year.
***James told Sportscar365: “You’re never fully prepared but we feel like we’ve done the best effort we can, to have our spare parts in place and our spares in place and the support in place. We feel comfortable with that.”
***The team has yet to confirm the third driver for its lone Valkyrie entry in next month’s Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring, alongside full-season pilots Ross Gunn and Roman De Angelis. Both Alex Riberas and Tom Gamble turned laps in the recent IMSA-sanctioned test at the Florida circuit, although Gamble has already been confirmed in the team’s Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo GTD entry.
***A spokesperson for WEC organizer LMEM confirmed to Sportscar365 that no podium ceremony will be held for the FIA World Cup for Teams this season, following the reduction in entries from four cars to two this season: the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari and the No. 99 Proton Competition Porsche.
***Neel Jani says he has no concerns about welcoming two new rookie teammates to the lineup of the No. 99 Porsche 963, in the form of Nico Pino, who was part of Proton’s lineup for the recent Rolex 24 at Daytona, and Nico Varrone.
***The Swiss driver told Sportscar365: “I knew Nico [Pino] from 2023, doing LMP2 with Duqueine, where we had a very good season together. He also did a great job at Daytona — in his very first stint in a Porsche 963 he was running P2 with Kevin Estre behind, so there couldn’t have been more pressure! I am confident he will find the groove.”
***A spokesperson for Peugeot confirmed to Sportscar365 that Pino is no longer a Stellantis junior driver.
***Peugeot has a new CEO as of this month, with Alain Favey taking over in the role from the now-retired Linda Jackson. Asked by Sportscar365 if this changed anything for the team on the ground, technical director Olivier Jansonnie replied: “So far no change. The brand is still fully committed to this project, and there is huge support from the brand.”
***Jansonnie described Peugeot’s strong performance at Lusail last year in what was the final outing for the previous 9X8 with no rear wing as “irrelevant” to the French marque’s prospects this year. “The car is so different aero-wise, the tires are different, I would say it’s more or less irrelevant,” he said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the ranking between the manufacturers is very different from last year.”
***Similarly, Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle downplayed the prospects of another all-Porsche podium in Qatar owing to increased competition in the Hypercar class. He told Sportscar365: “It’s a much stronger competition than we faced last year here. We do not expect to be 1-2-3 here anymore. If we get it, we’ll take it, but I doubt we’ll have it.”
***Kuratle confirmed the engine issue for the No. 6 Porsche at the Prologue is an “understood problem” that will result in “no drama” for any of the 963s this week. The powerplant was air-freighted back to Weissach on Sunday for full analysis, with its initial theory on-site in Qatar having proven to be the case.
***Porsche and BMW’s pre-race concerns with the spec LMDh powertrain at the Rolex 24, which turned out to be a non-issue, has resulted in some “fine tuning” according to Kuratle, who confirmed that there have been no specification changes to the hybrid or battery systems after working with the hybrid partners to find a solution. “We are confident that we addressed the problems,” he said.
***Kuratle said that Porsche has made “progress behind the scenes” on determining the third driver for its third Porsche Penske entry at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, although declined to go into further detail. “It will not take long but we have to come up with the third driver,” he said.
***Sportscar365 understands that reigning ABB FIA Formula E World Champion Pascal Wehrlein remains the favorite to join Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr.
***The No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari has a new race engineer this season in the form of Jonas Vanpachtenbeke, who makes the move from Team WRT. Robert Kubica told Sportscar365 of the team’s new signing: “I know him very well from when I raced for WRT [in LMP2], but he was always working on the sister car.”
***Vanpachtenbeke replaces Jorge Segers, who previously worked with AF Corse in the DTM, notably running now-Red Bull Formula 1 driver Liam Lawson’s car in 2021.
***ACO competition director Thierry Bouvet revealed that the reduction in noise for the LMGT3 class was put into place in the original regulations of the class last year, which dictated the reduced levels to be put into place for the 2025 season.
***Bouvet said: “The noise level has been a subject and is more and more of a subject for tracks. Tracks like Spa, they have only so many days where they can exceed the noise level and so on, so we wanted to take care of that. It’s also been a wish from the Endurance Commission to take care of that.”
***Bouvet said that noise reductions will be in place for the next generation of LMP2. “We looked at it for LMP3 as well,” he added.
***Final practice for the Qatar 1812km is set for 12 p.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) on Thursday, with qualifying following at 5 p.m. (9 a.m. ET). Sunset is due for 5:33 p.m. local time, shortly after the scheduled end of LMGT3 Hyperpole and before the first qualifying for Hypercar, which begins at 5:40 p.m.
John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report
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