Lone Star Le Mans – Porsche wins in the rain, podium for Peugeot

Lone Star Le Mans, sixth round of the 2025 season of the World ChampionshipEndurance, was heavily impacted by rain. After the mixed conditions of the previous day in qualifying, a deluge fell at the start of the six-hour race this Sunday in Texas. On a soggy track and with reduced visibility, the first hour was contested under the Safety Car before race control raised a red flag due to a Safety Car confusion. Once the situation was resolved, the actual start of the race was given 1 hour and 40 minutes after its scheduled start. The remaining 4 hours and 20 minutes were for a long time a test of survival.

On a wet track, the Ferrari have long dominated with the n°83, victorious here last year, then the n°51, but the Porsche No. 6 kept pace. Kevin Estre even had a chance to try his luck with 1 hour and 45 minutes to go during a race restart. Nestled in the slipstream of Alessandro Pier Guidi, the Frenchman attacked the Italian at the first corner to take the lead and never relinquish it. The reigning world champion maintained his advantage until the finish line to give Porsche and his teammates Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell their first victory of the season.

The battle for the podium was also lively, with many manufacturers in contention, including the Aston Martin Valkyrie. Long in the top 5, the British manufacturer's 007 and 009 cars, however, encountered their first reliability issues since Qatar, despite having shown excellent performance since the start of the weekend.

The surprise finally came from Peugeot . After a disqualification the day before depriving the No. 93 of third place on the grid due to a problem with the rear rain light, the Lion brand bounced back perfectly by delivering a solid race in the rain. The No. 94 of Stoffel Vandoorne, Loïc duval and Malthe Jakobsen even took the podium ahead of the sister car of Jean-Éric Vergne, Mikkel Jensen and Paul di Resta. Cadillac completed the podium with the No. 38 of Sébastien Bourdais, Earl Bamber and Jenson Button.

The race was more complicated for AlpineThe A424s of the arrowed A did not seem at ease in these difficult conditions and the race could have been stopped in the second hour for the n°36 after going off the track. Both cars finally saw the finish, but outside the top 10: 11th for the n°35 and 15th for the n°36.

Toyota did not do better than 8th place with the No. 8 of Sébastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley, while the No. 7 finished outside the points. At BMW, the No. 20 retired before the end of the first Safety Car due to a hybrid system insulation problem and the No. 15 finished in 12th place.

In LMGT3, the battle was beautiful and tough between Ford and McLaren, two manufacturers expected to compete in Hypercar in 2027. Despite some great battles between them, the two brands almost let victory slip away. With an offbeat strategy, it was the #296 Ferrari 54 of Davide Rigon, Thomas Flohr, and Francesco Castellacci that crossed the finish line first, but a five-second penalty gave victory to the #95 McLaren of Darren Leung, Marino Sato, and Sean Gelael.

FIA WEC – Lone Star Le Mans

Race classification