Teams will now prepare for the next WEC event, the Six Hours of Fuji, which will be run at the Fuji International Circuit in Oyama, Japan, on September 13.
AUSTIN, Texas—It was a gallant effort from Toyota’s Kamui Kobayashi to try and take his second win of the season in Sunday’s Lone Star Six Hour race at the Circuit of the Americas. But he fell short as the privateer AF Corse Ferrari team of Robert Kubica, Yiffei Yi, and Robert Shwartzman took their first win in the hypercar class by just over three seconds, with the Ferrari AF Corse finishing in third.
With Kubica driving early in the race, the Polish driver took the lead from pole-sitter Antonio Giovinazzi only three-quarters of an hour from the start and held onto the lead with two hours to go when Kobayashi took the lead. But the last round of pitstops gave Robert Shwartzman the lead and held the lead from his rival, who made a couple of mistakes late in the race, giving Schwartzman the win for good.
As far as the LMGT3 class is concerned, it was not a problem for the hometown Heart of America Racing team as Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli, and Alex Riberas took the pole and had the lead for the entire six hours of the race. However, the second and third-placed cars were the top series leaders, as Manthey Purerxing Porsche and their sister car, Manthey EMA, finished second and third, keeping them in front in the LMGT3 championship. The second-place team has been on the podium at every race, except for the 24 Hours of Lemans, where they retired the car after four hours.
Six cars retired from the race, including the Ferrari team, which included Giovinazzi, who spun his vehicle during the middle of the race and could never get it restarted. In addition, the British Hertz JOTA team also left the race with mechanical issues.
The teams will have only two weeks to prepare their cars for the next round, the seventh, which will take place at the Fuji International Circuit in Japan, the home track for the Toyota Gazoo Racing team.
