The #12 Cadillac headed the FP1 times on home soil at COTA, with an American manufacturer similarly to the fore in LMGT3 courtesy of a TF Sport Corvette one-two.
First track running of the 2025 Lone Star Le Mans weekend begins with 90-minute session held in hot and sunny conditions at Circuit of the Americas
Early problems hit the No.15 BMW as Raffaele Marciello stops on track and has to be recovered with a suspected MGU issue
Simultaneously, technical issues in race control delay session by 50-minutes, which sees an extension too the session activated
When running resumes the fastest time is achieved by the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA entry driven by Will Stevens in 6 Hours of Sao Paulo winning Cadillac V-Series.R Hypercar he shares with Norman Nato and Alex Lynn
Stevens’ time of 1m53.584s is 0.129s ahead of the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie driven by Tom Gamble, Harry Tincknell and Ross Gunn
But the #12 car ends the FP1 session in the gravel trap at Turn 7 bringing out the red flag and an early end to the session
Third in Hypercar is last year’s winning #83 Ferrari AF Corse entry as Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye look to defend their COTA crown with new for 2025 teammate Phil Hanson
Cleaning fourth fastest time in FP1 is the second of the Aston Martin Valkyrie entries which sees Roman de Angelis join Marco Sorensen and Alex Riberas again this weekend
Fifth and sixth is the two factory Ferraris with the #50 499P Hypercar just heading the sister #51 car as Niclas Nielsen sets late time to just go ahead
Rounding out the Top 10 in Hypercar is 7th #35 Alpine; 8th #20 BMW; 9th #93 Peugeot; 10th #36 Alpine
No.20 BMW of Sheldon van Der Linde causes fourth and final red flag of session in closing moments after spinning and stopping
LMGT3
Topping the times in the LMGT3 category is the #33 TF Sport Corvette which heads the sister #81 for the majority of the session
Daniel Juncadella sets the best lap on a 2m07.037s, which eclipses Charlie Eastwood’s best effort by 0.057s
United Autosports continue rapid form that was shown last year at COTA as the #95 McLaren takes third place in car raced by Darren Leung, Marino Sato and Sean Gelael
Fourth in LMGT3 is the #85 Iron Dames Porsche, while the #54 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari is with as it plans to overturn the memory of an early retirement in last year’s event
Completing the top six is the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus car shared by Finn Gehrsitz, Arnold Robin and Ben Barnicoat
Second red flag of session is issued after returning #10 Racing Spirit of LeMan Aston Martin driver Derek Deboer suffers accident at Turn 5 and his car has to be recovered. Deboer exited the car, which had significant rear damage, unassisted
In a revision to the original timetable, the 90-minute FP2 session will get underway at 16:30 local time.
