rewrite this content and keep HTML tags
Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA has thrown down the gauntlet to its FIA World Endurance Championship rivals as preparations for the 2025 campaign ramped up in Qatar’s Prologue, with the Anglo-American alliance topping the timesheets on the opening day of the Prologue.
After 2024 6 Hours of COTA winner Robert Kubica led the way in the morning for Ferrari privateer AF Corse, Alex Lynn leapt to the head of the order in the longer afternoon session aboard the #12 Cadillac V-Series.R Hypercar, with stablemate Sébastien Bourdais slotting in just behind in second, 0.2secs in arrears. Impressively, Lynn’s lap was barely four tenths adrift of the quickest effort in qualifying for the Qatar 1812km 12 months ago.
Ferrari remained up at the sharp end of proceedings, but at the end of the day, it was the factory #50 499P Hypercar – winner of last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans – in third place courtesy of Antonio Fuoco. Newly-promoted Porsche factory driver Julien Andlauer in the #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 Hypercar wound up fourth, as less than 0.3secs blanketed the leading quartet.
Other marques to feature inside the top ten were defending Manufacturers’ title-holder Toyota and Peugeot, while Aston Martin’s brand new Valkyrie Hypercars made their first official appearance in FIA WEC competition. TOYOTA GAZOO Racing covered the most laps of the Hypercar contenders across the two sessions.
In LMGT3, Akkodis ASP Team’s Lexus RC F GT3 proved to be the car to beat throughout, with Ben Barnicoat posting the benchmark time in the morning before team-mate and two-time world champion José MarÃa López repeated the feat in the afternoon. TF Sport’s Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R was similarly firmly in the mix, as were Vista AF Corse’s pair of Ferrari 296s, which between them won the final two races of 2024.
Following the completion of a combined 5,351 laps around Lusail International Circuit, the Prologue concludes with a further seven hours of running tomorrow (22 February) ahead of the curtain-raising contest at the track in a week’s time (28 February).
