Aston Martin tops both classes at COTA, Ferrari slips back
Harry Tincknell clocked a 1:52.567 to lead Heart of Racing's double-class sweep across both Friday sessions at Circuit of The Americas.
Aston Martin ended Friday at the Circuit of the Americas leading both classes of the FIA World Endurance Championship. Neither position looked likely three hours earlier.
Harry Tincknell put the number 007 Valkyrie on top of Hypercar with a 1:52.567. Zacharie Robichon led LMGT3 in the number 27 Vantage GT3 Evo on a 2:05.609. Two cars, two classes, one team, on a Friday that started with Ferrari setting the pace and a McLaren heading the GT3 order.
A second quicker than the morning
The headline number is not the gap. It is the improvement.
Antonio Giovinazzi led first practice for Ferrari on a 1:53.824. By second practice the benchmark was 1:52.567, more than a second faster around a circuit that had not changed. That is cooler track temperature, better rubber and everybody finally running low fuel, but it also means every conclusion drawn from the morning was worth very little by the afternoon.
Tincknell’s margin over the number 35 Alpine A424 of António Félix da Costa was 0.122 seconds. André Lotterer put the number 17 Genesis GMR-001 third on a 1:52.811, and the second Alpine, the number 36, was fourth. The top four covered less than three tenths, which at a circuit this long is nothing at all.
Ferrari led FP1 and finished FP2 fifth
Ferrari went one-two in the opening session, Giovinazzi from Antonio Fuoco, and looked exactly like the team that has been at the front all year. By the end of the afternoon the three 499Ps were running in a tight group, the number 83 AF Corse car quickest of them in fifth on a 1:53.000.
Read that carefully before deciding Ferrari has a problem. Three cars circulating within fractions of each other, all in the same window, usually means race preparation rather than a lost afternoon. The question qualifying will answer is whether the pace was being saved or simply was not there.
Robichon puts the Vantage four tenths clear
LMGT3 changed hands completely between sessions. The Garage 59 McLaren of Tom Fleming had set the morning benchmark. In the afternoon Robichon went to the top and stayed there, with the two Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos next: Maxime Martin 0.440 behind in the number 61, and Matteo Cressoni a further 0.089 back in the number 79.
The gap was the notable part. More than four tenths in a class designed around balance of performance is a large margin, and it will be read closely by everyone whose job is to keep this category tight.
Toyota and Peugeot kept their hands hidden
Not everybody was chasing a number. Toyota ended the session outside the top ten having spent it on race set-up, which is a pattern the team has repeated all season and which says nothing reliable about Sunday. Both Peugeots were more than a second off the leading time. The Cadillac JOTA cars were also outside the top ten.
Practice classifications reward whoever chose to do a qualifying simulation. They do not reward whoever spent an hour learning what the tyres do after twenty laps, which is the thing that actually decides a six-hour race.
Five points between Toyota and BMW
The championship is why this weekend matters more than a normal round.
Toyota leads the Hypercar manufacturers’ standings on 132 points with BMW five behind on 127, after BMW won at Sao Paulo. Ferrari is a distant third on 88. Further down, Alpine and Aston Martin are separated by a single point, 41 against 40, which turns every position between those two cars into something worth arguing about.
In the drivers’ championship, Rene Rast and Robin Frijns are level with Toyota’s Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries on 75 points, with Sheldon van der Linde ten behind.
Austin is round five of eight. Fuji, Barcelona and Monza follow. We set out the full title picture in our preview of the Lone Star Le Mans, and looked at Cadillac’s weekend separately in its COTA campaign.
Qualifying will say more than Friday did
Three things are worth watching. Whether Aston Martin can repeat the lap when it counts, because a single quick run in second practice is the cheapest kind of pace. Whether Ferrari’s cluster was strategy or reality. And whether the Iron Lynx Mercedes can close four tenths overnight in a class where four tenths is not supposed to exist.
Aston Martin has not led a session in this championship often. Leading both on the same afternoon, at a circuit where the Hypercar class has been Toyota, BMW and Ferrari territory all year, is worth taking seriously even if it lasts exactly one day.
