WEC 2025 result after Round 6: Lone Star Le Mans

Toyota Gazoo Racing continued its FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) campaign by battling through a wet and wild Lone Star Le Mans in Texas, USA, where heavy rain created challenging conditions during an incident-packed event. What happened? Read on for our WEC 2025 review of round six.

WEC 2025: Lone Star Le Mans

The WEC’s eight-week summer break came to an end with round six, the Lone Star Le Mans. Hosted at the Circuit of the Americas in Texas, USA, it remains one of only two circuits on the current calendar that Toyota has yet to secure a win. The team hoped this would be the year to break that cycle, or achieve its first podium of what has shaped out to be a very competitive season. Unfortunately, that was not to be.

The 3.4-mile Texan circuit is run anti-clockwise and characterised by the steep hill to turn one. This is followed by a spectacular sequence of sweeping, fast corners, followed by tighter, more technical corners in the later sectors. This combination, as well as one of the heaviest braking zones of the season (approx. 185mph to 35mph), makes finding the right car set-up particularly challenging.

After sustaining a collar bone injury in a training accident the week before, Mike Conway’s place in the #7 GR010 Hybrid was taken by José María López. He shared driving duties with Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries, while the #8 car was manned by Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa.

Free practice 1 and 2

Searing air temperatures of 38°C and a peak track temperature of 53°C certainly strained the teams on the opening two practice sessions. The first was marred by a series of red flags due to technical issues and on-track incidents, the combination of which cost the crews some 20 minutes of running time. Despite these interruptions, the Toyota team made the most of the available track time and progressed with its programme of mechanical and aerodynamic adjustments.

Though frazzling for all involved, the high temperatures of the afternoon provided an excellent opportunity to gauge the performance and degredation of the tyres – data which was analysed and combined with information gathered from the first session for the following day’s final one-hour practice. With just a few minutes of second practice remaining, a red flad incident called time on what thankfully had been a largely incident-free second session.

Free practice 3 and qualifying

After the extreme heat of the previous day, further weather-related issues presented themselves and created strategic challenges for both the teams and drivers. Light rain began early in third practice and continued intermittently throughout the day, which made deciding on the correct tyre extremely difficult. The ever-changing conditions resulted in a damp track surface at the start of qualifying, when the field of 18 Hypercars battled for the top ten places in Hyperpole.

Qualifying duties were given to Kobayashi (#7) and Hirakawa (#8), both of whom started on medium compound slicks rather than treaded wet weather tyres. It took longer than usual for the tyres to reach peak operating temperature, and as the unpredictable weather continued rather than getting better, Kobayashi changed to wets while Hirakawa continued on slicks. This proved to be the correct gamble for Hirakawa as his lap times slowly but consistently improved. However, rapid improvements throughout the rest of the field meant that Hirakawa went from seventh to tenth in the closing seconds. But it was enough to put the Japanese driver through to the Hyperpole, where he earned eighth place on the grid despite intensifying rain.

WEC 2025 race: Lone Star Le Mans

Drivers, crew members and all 66,000 spectators were tested to the limit on race day as the weather turned from bad to worse. So bad was it that the start of the race was delayed almost two hours, including an hour behind the safety car and a red flag period. Starting from seventh in the #8 car and 17th in the #7 car, drivers Hartley and de Vries tried valiantly to alter the order as soon as racing commenced. They were partially successful: Hartley dropped to tenth while de Vries rose to 13th. But then a few laps later the safety car was deployed again.

When racing resumed, de Vries continued his charge and passed several rivals to break into the top ten. Then, at the first driver changes just before half distance, López took eighth during another safety car period. Meanwhile, Hartley had endured two off-track moments before handing over to Hirakawa, who started his stint in 11th place.

Conditions then deteriorated further as the rain intensified, triggering incidents throughout the field. Hirakawa spun in the #8 GR010 Hybrid after being pushed by an LMGT3 car but fought back from 15th to 11th before handing over to Buemi late in the fourth hour. A dramatic stint for the #7 ended with López stuck in the gravel at turn 13 after two earlier spins. He was recovered during a safety car period, before Kobayashi took the wheel in 17th.

The race was green again only briefly before yet another safety car session. Buemi moved up into eighth heading into the final 90 minutes, although he later lost a place. After what felt like an eternity of rain, the track began to dry inside the final half hour. Desperate to capitalise on this and claw back some positions, team principal Kobayashi made the decision to change to slick tyres. However, it was too soon and he suffered a harmless spin soon after. Buemi kept it clean through the final minutes to take the flag in ninth, while Kobayashi finished 14th, four laps behind.

The team now turns its focus to achieving a stronger result at its home race, the 6 Hours of Fuji.