Cadillac and Corvette in World Endurance Championship; A battle on homeland

The Lone Star Le Mans race goes from September 4 to 6 in Austin, Texas, United States. Before the first free practice, Cadillac said their goal was to keep the momentum up on home soil, and Chevrolet stated they couldn’t ask for any better momentum. Alex Lynn, one of the Cadillac hypercar drivers, will not be racing in this race due to neck injuries requiring surgery.

In the first free practice, Cadillac placed 7th with the #38 hypercar, and 16th with the #12th hypercar. Chevrolet performed poorly, as the #33 LMGT3 placed 16th, while the #34 car placed last in 18th. In the second free practice, Cadillac performed worse, placing 11th with the #38 hypercar and 16th with the #12 hypercar, just in front of last place. Fortunately, Chevrolet placed higher in the second free practice, with #33 finishing 12th and #34 improving to 17th. In the third and final free practice of the Lone Star Le Mans, Cadillac significantly improved in the hypercar series, placing 3rd with #38 and 6th with #12. Contrasting Cadillac, both Chevrolets have placed last, with #33 placing 17th and #34 placing 18th. 

Qualifying laps for Cadillac in the hypercar series had placed #38 in 6th, allowing the car to contend in the hyperpole laps, and #12 in 15th place. Corvette continues to perform inadequately, placing 12th with #34 and 17th with #33, meaning no Corvette LMGT3 cars have managed to qualify for hyperpole laps, and they’re outperformed by at least 50% of the other contenders. In the hyperpole laps, which determine who starts at the top of the grid based on fastest lap time, Cadillac had one hypercar and placed 2nd with #38, while Chevrolet had no participants due to inadequate lap times. 

Starting off the race, the #38 Cadillac, driven by Jack Aitken, is right behind first place, Ferrari’s #51 hypercar, driven by Antonio Giovinazzi, while in the back, Will Stevens in the Cadillac #12 hypercar is defending his position against Marco Sørensen in the Aston Martin #009 hypercar. As this is happening, the LMGT3 #34 Corvette sprung up from their original 12th to 8th place, passing 4 drivers. 14 minutes into the race, Corvette #34 LMGT3 car, being driven by Salih Yoluç, makes contact with François Héraiu in the #21 Ferrari while trying to overtake on the inside. Only 3 minutes later, #33, being driven by Ben Keating, makes contact with Thomas Flohr in the #54 Ferrari, spinning him out, and commentators have stated the Ferrari is at fault for the incident. With 2 minutes left, there are reports of dust crowding the track, so #38, driven by Jack Aitken, is forced to correct the steering on some turns, slowing him down. Leading into the final lap, Jack Aitken in #38 is 5 seconds behind, while #12, driven by Will Stevens, is 35 seconds behind in 7th place. 

Finishing the race, Jack Aitken manages 2nd place in the #38 hypercar, with a 4.471-second gap to #50 Ferrari, because the #35 hypercar driven by Mil was penalized by 5 seconds. Will Stevens, driving the #12 hypercar, was penalized 5 seconds, so he finished 9th with a 39.631-second gap. These positions allow Cadillac to continue occupying 4th place overall in the season with 80 points. Corvette has performed inadequately in the race, similarly to the second practice with #33 placing 12th place, being behind by one lap, and #34 placing 14th, being behind by 3 laps. Despite the poor performance in this race, Corvette remains in first place in the overall season with 76 points with the #33 car, though the alternative Turkish racing team suffers severely, dropping from 4th place to 8th place with a total of 43 points with the #34 car.

The upcoming race is 6 hours in Fuji, Japan, running from September 27 to September 29, which makes it the third-to-last race of the season. Cadillac should hold strong in 4th place overall in the hypercar series if they keep performing like this. This also applies to Corvette in LMGT3, which is in 1st place. Though the Turkish alternative team needs to start performing extremely well in the last 3 races of the season to keep up with the rest of the LMGT3 teams.

Brian Trinh is a sophomore member of the Multimedia Journalism Class

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