TOYOTA GAZOO Racing braved the Texas heat as track action got underway ahead of the Lone Star Le Mans with free practice at the Circuit of the Americas.
Air temperatures hit 38°C and track temperatures peaked at 53°C, but drivers and team members worked relentlessly during the opening two practice sessions to prepare for the sixth round of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) in Austin.
The team also faced the heat of intense Hypercar competition and results on the first day of track action highlight the difficult challenge ahead. The #7 GR010 HYBRID, with José María López replacing the injured Mike Conway alongside Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries, ended the day ninth fastest. Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa were 17th in their #8 GR010 HYBRID.
First practice was disrupted by a series of red flags. The first occurred within the opening 10 minutes, due to a technical issue in race control, although the session was extended by an hour to compensate. Three further stoppages caused by on-track incidents cost around 20 minutes of running time. Despite the interruptions, the team made the most of the available track time and progressed with its programme of mechanical and aerodynamic adjustments.
Those earlier delays pushed back the start of second practice by 30 minutes, giving teams enough time to prepare the cars and make set-up adjustments. High afternoon temperatures challenged not only drivers, team members, cars and equipment, but also the Michelin tyres, so the session provided an opportunity to analyse performance and degradation. A largely incident-free session ended prematurely due to a red flag with just a few minutes remaining.
Engineers and drivers will now analyse the data from both sessions in the search for more performance from the GR010 HYBRIDs prior to Saturday’s one-hour third practice. That is the final chance to test adjustments before Hypercar qualifying takes place at 3.40pm (10.40pm CEST) to determine the grid for Sunday’s six-hour race, which begins at 1pm (8pm CEST).
Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7): “It’s hard to say where we are in terms of our overall pace, but it was nice to be back here in Austin. The track seems to be a little bit different to last year because it feels less bumpy, so we have been adjusting the car set-up accordingly. We still need to find some more pace. We’ll work hard on that tonight, and I am sure we can improve for qualifying and the race.”
José María López (Driver, car #7): “It was a good day, and I did a decent number of laps to help me get back into the rhythm with this car, even though there isn’t a huge amount of time for each driver in these sessions. I’m happy overall and pleased with the feeling I have in the car. We are on the back foot a bit in terms of lap times, so we need to work on finding some more performance.”
Nyck de Vries (Driver, car #7): “It’s always hard to know what everyone is doing in practice, but I had fun out there because I really enjoy driving on this track. We were obviously trying different things on each side of the garage to help us learn as much as possible. We will analyse everything tonight and hopefully put things together to make some steps forward.”
Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car #8): “I am happy to be back in the car after missing Brazil. It’s been a hot day as expected, and we have been trying to learn as much as possible about the tyres and the set-up. Now we have some good data to analyse and I hope we can find some pace. Some competitors are a bit faster than us at the moment so we will try to improve the car for the race.”
Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8): “We had no dramas, just a lot of red flags but that is the same for everyone. It was fun to be back on track after the summer break, and nice to be here in Austin again. We were not as competitive as we would have liked today, particularly on one lap. So, there is still a lot of work to do before the race if we are going to fight at the front.”
Ryo Hirakawa (Driver, car #8): “It was a productive day. We improved the car quite a lot from the beginning, especially on the long runs. We have some room to improve in qualifying trim but in terms of race pace we looked better. We are not at the top of the timing sheets, but I think it was a solid start and now we want to do more tomorrow. We need to find an extra bit of performance.”
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The 2025 TOYOTA GAZOO Racing WEC press kit, along with rights-free video material and photography of all TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s motorsports projects, can be found at https://toyotagazooracing.com/media/.
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