Porsche’s Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell have won the Lone Star Le Mans, the fifth round of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship, held at the Circuit of the Americas.
The race was held amid heavy rain conditions, with the first hour and a bit run under safety car before a red flag due to race control issues with the safety car procedure and the race order.
Phil Hanson, in the yellow #83 Ferrari, led the race under safety car and after the race resumed after red flag, albeit still under the safety car.
The race went green with just over four hours to go, with Hanson leading them away for the first proper racing laps. He put a few seconds on his Ferrari stablemate James Calado, in the #51 factory Ferrari, but another safety car, due to multiple cars aquaplaning off track.
Laurens Vanthoor, meanwhile, was third behind Calado. A slow pitstop under one of the race’s many safety cars – there were six in total – dropped the leading #83 back, promoting the #51, now with Giovinazzi at the wheel, to the lead, with the #6 Porsche behind in second, with Matt Campbell having replaced L. Vanthoor behind the wheel.
With the track still very wet in the second half of the race, Giovinazzi began to pull away from Campbell. But, the Australian was able to stay mostly in touch with the Italian car, only at most around five seconds back.
At the next safety car period, Kevin Estre climbed in. At the restart, he forced his way through Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 car, who’d replaced his teammate Giovinazzi.
Estre took the opportunity at turn 1 at the restart, with under two hours to go, and forced his way through, making contact with the Ferrari.
This gave Pier Guidi’s car a puncture, dropping the #51 back through the field as he trundled around to the pits.
Estre, though, was on a mission, pulling out a multiple-second gap to Miguel Molina behind in the #50 Ferrari. However, another safety car caused this gap to close again.
When the race restarted, with an hour and 15 minutes remaining, Estre once again went on a tear to create a gap to the cars behind.
Molina, meanwhile, had other thoughts on his mind, as he needed to defend from Alex Lynn in the #12 Cadillac, who’d gradually been moving up the order throughout the race after starting at the back.
The Spaniard fended him off, with Lynn then pitting to hand the #12 car over to his teammate, Norman Nato.
Estre had used this battle to build a large gap, around nine seconds, to Molina. He’d make his final pitstop with around 12 minutes to go, maintaining the lead when the final cycle shook out, taking the win a few laps later, largely unthreatened in the final hour.
Stoffel Vandoorne, though, in the #94 Peugeot, also had designs on Molina’s second. The Belgian, with a car underneath him that seemed to work perfectly in the drying conditions and track surface, progressively caught Molina before the final round of pitstops.
The two battled for position, but Vandoorne couldn’t get by despite possessing a car which had a straight-line speed advantage. They both pitted, Vandoorne first then Molina.
Peugeot’s undercut strategy worked and when Molina rejoined with under 15 minutes to go, Vandoorne was ahead by a couple of seconds.
This time, though, on old wet tyres, Vandoorne didn’t have the pace to stay ahead. He fought valiantly, using the straight-line speed to defend well, but inadvertently left the door open with Molina pouncing on the opportunity to pass.
This, then, was how the top 3 finished, with Estre 8.625 seconds ahead of Molina. Vandoorne was a further 0.916 off the Ferrari, while Vandoorne’s Peugeot teammate, Mikkel Jensen in the #93, was almost six seconds back in fourth.
Fifth was Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari, while sixth went to Jenson Button in the #38 JOTA Cadillac. Seventh was Robert Kubica in the #83 Ferrari – he and his teammates Hanson and Ye Yifei never truly recovered from the slow stop earlier in the race, and also had to contend with a drive-through penalty late on.
Eighth was Norman Nato in the #12 Cadillac, while Sebastien Buemi took ninth in the #8 Toyota. Rounding out the top 10 was Michael Christensen in the #5 Porsche.
In LMGT3, Marino Sato, Sean Galael and Darren Leung took victory, in the #95 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3. They were followed by Kelvin van der Linde in the #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3, just 0.256 back, with Davide Rigon in third driving the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.
Rigon had finished first on the road but received a post-race 5-second penalty soon after the finish for avoidable contact with the #77 Ford of Ben Tuck.
Discussion about this post