Ferrari wins a dramatic Lone Star Le Mans in Austin, with Aston Martin taking LMGT3

The Ferrari 499P run by AF Corse claimed victory in round five of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Circuit of the Americas, taking its first win of the 2026 season at the end of a chaotic, twist filled Lone Star Le Mans. On the same day that Kimi Antonelli became the first Italian driver to win at Monza since 1966, the Ferrari crewed by Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco and Nicklas Nielsen delivered Ferrari’s first win of an increasingly open championship on American soil.

167 laps of safety cars, rain and reversals

Six hours of racing at Austin produced no shortage of drama, including safety car periods, retirements, technical issues, penalties, and even rain, with a summer storm hitting part of the Circuit of the Americas shortly before the start on one of the hottest weekends of the season in Texas. By the time the lights went green, the track had dried out completely.

Pole position went to the sister Ferrari #51, with Antonio Giovinazzi edging Cadillac’s Jack Aitken by just 0.054 seconds, before Aitken matched the Italian’s time in Hyperpole with a 1:52.445 to take the front row without the pole itself. The Alpine Endurance Team’s #35 sat just 0.29 seconds off the front two, with the Aston Martin Thor Team’s #7 a further 0.21 seconds back in fourth. The eventual winning Ferrari, #50, started fifth, just over four tenths off the pace.

A lead that changed hands repeatedly

In front of nearly 70,000 spectators, the race built steadily into a genuinely gripping contest. Molina moved past Ferdinand Habsburg’s Alpine A424 in the opening laps, while Giovinazzi’s Ferrari #51 took the overall lead, helped by several Full Course Yellow periods, and led Aitken’s Cadillac after the first hour.

As endurance races so often do, the outcome turned on strategy. Several teams brought forward their driver changes, with Norman Nato taking over the Cadillac #12, Sébastien Buemi jumping into the Toyota #8, and Molina climbing into the #50 to take the lead once early leader Giovinazzi pitted for his scheduled stop and fresh tyres.

Buemi began applying pressure during the second hour, prompting Molina to pit again and switch strategy, a swap that put the #51 Ferrari back in front with a 10 second lead over Sébastien Bourdais in the Cadillac #38. Charles Milesi’s Alpine #35 held third until a five second penalty for a pit stop infringement dropped the car back. The second Toyota, initially driven by Mike Conway before handing over to Kamui Kobayashi, ran fourth, chased by Tom Gamble’s Aston Martin #007 and Frédéric Makowiecki’s Alpine #36.

Championship leaders BMW M Team had a difficult start too, with René Rast picking up a five second penalty following an early race incident involving Peugeot’s Paul di Resta.

Electrical drama for the poleman, a Toyota surge, and a late hydraulic failure

At the start of the third hour the order read Ferrari #51, Cadillac #38, Alpine #35, Toyota #7, Aston Martin #007, Alpine #36, BMW #20, Genesis #19, BMW #15 and Aston Martin #009. A Virtual Safety Car period to clear debris then bunched the Hypercar field back together, undoing some of the early strategic gaps, just as the #51 Ferrari lost its lead to an electrical problem during a pit stop.

That handed the lead to Earl Bamber in the Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA #38, though with tyres more worn than those behind him, the New Zealander’s stint at the front was never going to last. Bamber held off attacks from António Félix da Costa’s Alpine #35 and Tom Gamble’s Aston Martin, but Nyck de Vries’s Toyota #7 was the one making real progress, picking off positions with a series of strong overtakes. Meanwhile the #51 Ferrari resolved its electrical issue and rejoined with James Calado in tenth.

The battle among the top ten Hypercars, separated by just nine seconds at one stage, kept the crowd fully engaged. On lap 105, de Vries took the Toyota #7 to the front and set the race’s fastest lap at 1:53.977, opening a ten second gap just before the penultimate round of pit stops at the start of the fifth hour.

Kamui Kobayashi took over from de Vries and held the advantage over Victor Martins in the Alpine #36 and Ryo Hirakawa in the sister Toyota #8, which had opted for a shorter pit stop than its rivals, only for a pit lane speeding penalty to end any hope of victory, eventually finishing sixth.

With an hour left, a further Safety Car period followed an incident involving the Lexus RC F Akkodis ASP #78. At the restart, the Hypercar manufacturer order read Toyota, Alpine, Ferrari, Genesis, Cadillac, Aston Martin, BMW and Peugeot.

De Vries, one of the day’s standout performers, returned to the car and pushed on, lowering his own fastest lap to 1:53.674 and pulling clear of Charles Milesi’s Alpine #35, which became stuck in traffic and lost second place to Nicklas Nielsen’s Ferrari #50.

With just 12 minutes to the chequered flag, and the Toyota #7 seemingly on course for victory, a hydraulic failure stopped de Vries on track and forced the Japanese manufacturer’s retirement.

Ferrari’s first win since Le Mans 2025

Nielsen wasted no time capitalising, driving the #50 to victory, Ferrari’s first FIA WEC win since the 2025 24 Hours of Le Mans and the first for this specific 499P chassis since Qatar 2025. The margin over Bamber’s Cadillac #38 stood at 4.471 seconds. Alpine’s #35, six seconds further back despite its five second penalty, claimed its first podium of the season, with sister car #36 rounding out the top five. Aston Martin’s Thor Team #007 finished fourth, while the pole sitting Ferrari #51 could not recover beyond eleventh.

In the Hypercar manufacturers’ standings, Toyota now leads on 140 points, just nine ahead of BMW on 121, while Ferrari sits third on 114, only 26 points off the top with the title fight very much alive.

Drudi and Aston Martin complete an Italian double in LMGT3

Adding to the day’s success for Italian fans, Mattia Drudi won LMGT3 in what amounted to a home race for American team Heart of Racing, sharing the Aston Martin Vantage #27 with Ian James and Zacharie Robichon. The trio finished more than seven seconds clear of their own teammates in the sister Vantage AMR #23, and five seconds ahead of the second placed Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo #91 from Manthey DKR Engineering, crewed by James Cottingham, Timur Boguslovskiy and Ayhancan Guven.

The result marked James, Robichon and Drudi’s first LMGT3 win in two years, and Heart of Racing’s second Lone Star Le Mans victory in three years. Having also topped qualifying, Aston Martin’s #27 and #23 completed a one-three finish in the class, a result that at one stage in the race looked set to go the way of Proton Competition’s Ford Mustang GT3 EVO entries instead.

Speaking after the race, Drudi described it as one of the toughest of his career, noting that the car was extremely fast and that the team had done an excellent job, despite losing air conditioning in the cockpit after the first stint under Safety Car conditions, which made things considerably hotter inside the car for the rest of the race. He added that after half a season spent chasing wins that kept slipping away over small details, the team was thrilled to finally get its first victory, particularly on home soil, on top of the satisfaction of a double podium alongside the #23 car.

Hypercar class final results, Lone Star Le Mans 2026