Cadillac Racing Primed for Upset Bid at WEC Lone Star Le Mans

• Porsche, Toyota and Ferrari have been the dominant players coming into the sixth round of the World Endurance Championship.

• Porsche and Toyota each have two victories, but Ferrari triumphed in the rainy donnybrook at Le Mans.

• The Cadillac squad, however, may have some advantages in the first COTA appearance by the WEC since 2017.

When the six-hour Lone Star Le Mans race ends on Sunday evening at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, who will have the ayes of Texas upon them?

Porsche, Toyota and Ferrari have been the dominant players coming into the sixth round of the World Endurance Championship and are expected to get the draw on the other Hypercar entries.

The season’s first five meetings have been a barroom brawl among these three factory teams with no clear standout. Porsche and Toyota each have two victories, but Ferrari triumphed in the rainy donnybrook at Le Mans. If not for a bizarre ending at Spa, Ferrari would have two wins and Porsche just the season-opening victory by Porsche Penske Motorsport at Qatar.

For those looking for an upset, the eyes are on Cadillac Racing. It remains to be seen if Chip Ganassi Racing is finally ready to score its first WEC victory in a season dominated by politics and on track setbacks. But the Cadillac squad may have some advantages in the first COTA appearance by the WEC since 2017.

Both Toyota’s GR010 hybrid and the Porsche 963 have been hit with significant additions of kilos and reductions in kilowatt power under BOP following the fifth round in Brazil, where Toyota scored a dominant victory with Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa. Ferrari, meanwhile, is not expected to be a Prancing Horse in Texas.

“I don’t think we’re among the favorites for this six hour,” said Alessandro Pier Guidi of the 499P, “but we’ll do our best to exploit the potential of the car and our team.”

Ganassi’s lone V-Series.R entry has been consistently quick, qualifying second twice, third and fourth in the last three races (including a second entry at Le Mans). But the team has yet to score a podium finish.

Cadillac’s racing program manager, Laura Wontrop-Klauser, acknowledges that running a single-car team versus the predominantly two-car teams has been a challenge.

“It’s always tricky when you just have a sample size of one,” she said. “We all have the same amount of time on track at each event. The only way you can get more time is by having more cars, because you can use your time across more vehicles.

“But it does allow us to focus,” she continued. “We don’t get too distracted or concerned about making a test plan for a bunch of vehicles. We can take our simulator learnings, take the best pieces of that and work with it on that one car.”

Cadillac to Run Two Cars in '25

Jota, a Porsche 963 privateer team this year, has been officially named to run a two-car Cadillac team next year, taking over from Ganassi, which announced in March that it was parting ways with the GM brand. Jota’s driving lineup has yet to be announced, which means that Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber, currently contracted to Ganassi, are highly motivated. The lone race in the U.S. should also be a boost for the entire team, which is based in Stuttgart, Germany.

“After our test at COTA, we’ll be well-prepared,” said Bamber, “I think this race will be one of the highlights of the season.”

The 3.426-mile circuit presents a mixed bag of pavement compared to some of the smoother and more consistent tracks on the schedule. In 2022, Turns 12-16 were repaved and Turns 2 and 10 were reinforced with concrete pads. This year, patchwork repaving took place at Turns 1-2, 9-11 and 18-19. The track remains notorious for bumps, which could play well for the Americans and their connections at GM.

“We’ll be able to lean on our American colleagues for what they know,” said Bamber, a New Zealander.

The Ganassi team has rankled the competition by using just two drivers in the six-hour events. Because of Le Mans, the competition’s factory teams have contracted three drivers for the full season. That divides track time during preparation and generates one more driver change. It’s enough of an advantage that the WEC is considering a mandatory three-driver rule for 2025.

Porsche on Top of Standings

The Penske Porsche Motorsport trio of Lauren Vanthoors, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre lead the driver championship points by 19 over Le Mans winners Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen. Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries are 22 points behind the leaders in third place, absent Mike Conway who missed Le Mans with an injury.

Porsche has a four-point lead over Toyota in the manufacturer championship, where Ferrari is 17 points back.

In addition to the Corvette Z06 GT3.R entries of TF Sport and the Aston Martin Vantages of U.S.-based Heart of Racing, a “home team” in the LMGT3 class will be Proton Competition, due to its entry of a brace of Mustang GT3s. Texan Ben Keating, will make a one-off appearance with the German team, which won its class at Le Mans.

In the LMGT3 chase for the Endurance Trophy awarded to drivers, Klaus Bachler, Aliaksandr Malykin and Joel Sturm are a comfortable 25 points ahead of Manthey Racing teammates and fellow Porsche 911 GT3 R drivers Morris Schrung, Richard Lietz and Yasser Shahin. The factory-backed Manthey equipe has the top two positions in the team trophy chase.