Aston Martin locked out the front row of the grid for Sunday’s Lone Star Le Mans race in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s LMGT3 category, as Eduardo Barrichello secured the British marque’s third straight pole position in the series.
Heart of Racing Team has gone undefeated in LMGT3 Hyperpole since Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium back in May, with Mattia Drudi claiming the top spot on the starting grid for the 24 Hours of Le Mans – for the second consecutive campaign – and ‘super-sub’ Kobe Pauwels repeating the feat four weeks later in São Paulo.
Today, it was the turn of Barrichello to top the times in the #23 Vantage AMR, as the Brazilian once again proved his prowess, lapping 0.124 seconds quicker than stablemate Zacharie Robichon in the sister #27 car to clinch his third pole from four Hyperpole appearances in FIA WEC – unrivalled in the fiercely-contested production-based category.
“It was super-special,” enthused the 24-year-old Paulista. “This is a track that I really enjoy. The heat was obviously difficult for everybody, but I’m Brazilian, so I quite enjoy that! We knew we had to adopt a different set-up for qualifying than for the race, and apparently, our qualifying set-up was really good, so hats off to all the guys and girls for a great job!
“The race will be long and we will have to really look after our tyres tomorrow, but hopefully, we can reward the team by finishing on the podium. We’ve had lot of pole positions but no wins lately, so that would be amazing.”
The result marked Aston Martin’s 73rd pole in the championship and made it the first manufacturer to set the pace in three successive Hyperpole shootouts in LMGT3, with Robichon’s similarly impressive effort cementing the first single-marque front row lockout in the class since the same event last year.
Twelve months ago in Texas, it was Ford that had ruled the roost on Saturday, and while the Proton Competition-prepared Mustangs threatened to challenge again, ultimately, Ben Tuck was forced to settle for fourth in the #77 entry – matching the lap time of third-placed Timur Boguslavskiy in the #91 Manthey DK Engineering Porsche – with last season’s COTA pole-sitter, Giammarco Levorato, ruing a late error that restricted him to ninth.
The championship-leading Corvettes were the major casualties of the first part of the session. TF Sport arrived in Austin buoyed by back-to-back triumphs in the 24 Hours of Le Mans and Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo, but the pair of Z06.Rs struggled for speed around the 5.513km lap and will begin tomorrow’s six-hour race from just 12th (#34) and 17th (#33) on the 18-strong LMGT3 grid.
The homegrown marque was the only one not to get a car through to Hyperpole, while the title-defending Manthey-run #92 Porsche similarly fell at the first hurdle and will duly take the start from just 13th position.
Check out the full Qualifying and Hyperpole results.
The 2026 edition of Lone Star Le Mans will get underway at 13:00 local time (GMT-5) on Sunday, 6 September.
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