WEC Lone Star Le Mans: Everything you need to know + Summer news round-up

Credit: FIA WEC

The World Endurance Championship (WEC) returns to our screens this weekend, after almost two months. The 35 full-season entrants will be pounding around the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas this weekend.

Last time out

Hypercar - Brazilian brilliance from BMW

It was the No.15 WRT BMW of Raffaele Marciello, Kevin Magnussen and Dries Vanthoor that came out on top last time out in Sao Paulo, after an action packed, strategic race. Vanthoor took home the victory for the crew, despite feeling ill for the majority of his time in the car.

The No.51 Ferrari finished just two and a quarter seconds back, with James Calado driving a full stint in that car with a piece of advertising board stuck to the front. The Briton tagged the wall on the tight pit exit at the start of his stint, collecting the debris on the front nose of his 499P.

Third and fourth were the two Cadillac's, having locked out the front row, and finishing one-two in last year's edition of the race.

It was a weekend to forget for BMW's biggest challengers in the title races, Toyota failing to score a single point across the weekend. The No.8 car had a coming together with the No.17 Genesis early on, suspesnion damage giving them a 12 lap deficit to the rest. The No.7 crew meanwhile, weren't really able to extract the pace out of the car, finising 12th, the first car off the lead lap.

Their tough weekend, plus BMW's triumph really spices up the championship picture heading into the final four rounds.

In the manufacturers standings, only five points separate the two, in Toyota's favour. The Japanese marque sit on 132 points, bolstered by their double podium at Le Mans, which is worth double points. BMW then have 127 points, but also the momentum coming from Brazil.

It's a further 39 points back to Ferrari, who've got Cadillac 28 points back. It's another 19 back to Alpine, with Aston Martin only one point behind them. Peugeot and Genesis bring up the rear on 15 and six points respectively.

In the drivers standings it's a tie between the No.20 BMW and the No.7 Toyota. Both have 75 points as we head into the second half of the season. It's close behind them too between the No.51 Ferrari and the No.8 Toyota, on 57 and 56 points respectively.

LMGT3 - Corvette consistency

Credit: TF Sport

Salih Yoluc, Peter Dempsey and Charlie Eastwood took home victory in the No.34 Racing Team Turkey with TF Sport Corvette in Brazil, eight seconds ahead of the No.69 WRT BMW. Those two cars were the only ones on the lead lap in class.

The winners utilsed driver strategy to help them win out in the end. While LMGT3 teams usually start the race with their Bronze driver, before swapping to their Silver and finally putting the Pro in the car to see it out, TF Sport decided to start the race with Yoluc - the team's Silver driver.

He was able to make up time against the Bronze drivers from their 10th place starting position, handing over to Dempsey in a good position. From there Dempsey put in a good stint, before Eastwood took over and sealed victory in his final stint.

The fight for third went down to the wire between the No.92 and No.91 Porsches and the No.88 Proton Ford Mustang. They ended up finishing in that order, a lap behind the leaders.

The Le Mans winning No.33 Corvette still hold their advantage after finishing eighth in the end, putting them on 76 points. You have to go 27 points further back to the No.92 Manthey Porsche, on 49 points. That gap means, that no matter what happens this weekend, Jonny Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating will leave Texas still on top of the table.

The No.69 BMW and No.34 Corvette are tied for third place on 43 points, with the No.21 Ferrari only one more point back.

Busy Summer break

Pretty much all of the Hypercar manufacturers have been in the news one way or another over the almost two month break between this weekend's race and Brazil.

Ford has undoubtedly been the biggest of those headlines, with their V8-powered LMDh making it's first public appearance at a test in Paul Ricard. The team covered 1000km over three days of testing at the French circuit, with all six drivers in attendance.

The American marque plans for a test in Portimao this month, with further running planned in Silverstone, Monza, Imola and Aragon, before the car heads back stateside to test at COTA and Sebring during the Winter.

It's a worthy note that Ford are currently the only Hypercar team to have confirmed their full driver line-up for 2027. Further shake-ups and moves are expected up and down the grid in the coming weeks and months.

The other 2027 debutants - McLaren - have also been making progress over the last couple of months. The MCL-HY has made appearances at Imola, Magny-Cours, Silverstone and 30-hour endurance test at Motorland Aragon.

Evo kits have been spotted for the current cars on the grid too. Aston Martin, Ferrari and Peugeot were all seen testing updated bodywork on their respective cars ahead of the 2027 season.

Alpine have also been in the news, with the French marque looking for a successor to run their A424 after it pulls out at the end of the season. Chinese manufactuerer Geely seem to be heavy favourites, with Signatech continuing the run the race operations should the deal go through.

In other news, Cadillac will look to send Action Express Racing back to Le Mans as it's extra entry next year, in place of the Wayne Taylor Racing car that raced this year.

The American brand have also confirmed that Alex Lynn will finally make his return to the No.12 Jota car for the final two rounds in Barcelona and Monza, with Ricky Taylor keeping his seat warm for this weekend.

Both Hypercar and LMGT3 tyre suppliers have been set for the next six years too. Michelin will continue supplying the Hypercars, while Goodyear will be supplying the LMGT3 teams with rubber all the way up until 2032.

Crucially for the Hypercars, this means that Michelin will supply the top class of World Sportscars through the beginning of it's new regulation cycle in 2030.

Back to Texas - The track

Credit: FIA WEC

The 3.4 mile (5.5km) Circuit of the Americas (COTA) is a track that challenges drivers and cars alike, taking inspiration from other tracks around the world, such as Silverstone and Istanbul Park.

As the drivers start the lap there's a huge elevation change up to turn 1, a tight left-handed hairpin that the 35-car grid will pile into on Sunday. Drivers can brake very late here due to the hill slowing them, so it will be a big action spot during the race as some may try a late send up here.

The track then plunges back downhill into the fast sweeping turn 2, before the essess section. This part of the track was modelled after Silverstone's famous Maggots and Becketts section, and is a great place to see the cars on the limit in qualifying.

After the twisty bits, it's another left handed hairpin at turn 11, before the long back straight. This will be the best slipstreaming opportunity on the track, leadng to moves down into the turn 12 hairpin.

After that though it tightens up again, with an opening radius hairpin followed by a second closing radius one. Finally then it's the quadruple right - modelled after a similar section at Instabul Park - and two left handers to finish the lap.

We could see some rain affect Friday's running, but the rest of the weekend looks dry and very hot. Raceday will have highs of 33 degrees Celsius, while Saturday tops out at 34 degrees.

Last year's race was affected by heavy rain, which led to a long Safety Car period and some interesting tyre strategy at the end of the race.

What to watch this weekend?

The weekend kicks off at 11:30 local time on Friday with Free Practice 1 for 90 minutes, followed by a second 90 minute session - FP2 - at 16:00. Both sessions can be viewed on FIAWEC+ with Live Timing only.

Televised action kicks off on Saturday though, with the 60 minute FP3 session at 11:00, before qualifying at 15:00. Both sessions, alongside the race can be viewed uninterrupted on FIAWEC+, or your local WEC broadcaster.

The main event will kick off at 13:00 local time on Sunday, running for 6 hours all the way through to 19:00. Fans can also enjoy two races from the Mustang Challenge, and three races from the Radical Cup North America season finale.