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 a 90-minute session held in hot and sunny conditions at Circuit of The Americas
Early dramas hit the #15 BMW, as Raffaele Marciello stops on-track and has to be recovered following a suspected MGU problem
Simultaneously, technical issues in Race Control delay the session by 50 minutes, prompting an extension
When running resumes, the fastest time is achieved by the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA entry piloted by Will Stevens, in the 6 Hours of São Paulo-winning V-Series.R Hypercar the Briton shares with team-mates 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 FP1 in the gravel trap at Turn Seven, bringing out the red flag and an early end to the session
Third in Hypercar is last year’s event-winning #83 Ferrari AF Corse entry, as Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye look to defend their COTA crown with new-for-2025 stablemate Phil Hanson
Claiming the fourth-fastest time in FP1 is the second of the Aston Martin Valkyries, which sees Roman de Angelis join Marco Sørensen and Alex Riberas again this weekend
Fifth and sixth are the two factory Ferraris, with the #50 499P just heading the sister #51 car as Nicklas Nielsen sets a late time to narrowly move ahead
Rounding out the top ten in Hypercar are the #35 Alpine, #20 BMW, #93 Peugeot and #36 Alpine
The #20 BMW of Sheldon van der Linde causes the fourth and final red flag of the session in the 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 car for the majority of the session
Daniel Juncadella sets the quickest lap with a 2m07.037s, which eclipses Charlie Eastwood’s best effort by 0.057s
United Autosports continues the rapid form it showed last year at COTA, as the #95 McLaren crewed by by Darren Leung, Marino Sato and Sean Gelael winds up third
Fourth in LMGT3 is the #85 Iron Dames Porsche, while the #54 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari is fifth as the Italian outfit aims to banish the memory of an early retirement in last year’s event
Completing the top six is the #78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus shared by Finn Gehrsitz, Arnold Robin and series returnee Ben Barnicoat
The second red flag of the session is issued after #10 Racing Spirit of Léman Aston Martin driver Derek DeBoer suffers an accident at Turn Five and his car has to be recovered. Deboer exited the car, which sustained significant rear damage, unassisted
In a revision to the original timetable, the 90-minute FP2 session will get underway at 16:30 local time.
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