How Porsche beat aggravated Ferrari in dramatic WEC Austin contest

Last weekend, Porsche finally chalked up a Hypercar victory in the World Endurance Championship in 2025. The rain that fell for the majority of the Lone Star Le Mans six-hour race at Austin on Sunday had a lot to do with that. And then there was the clash between the winning factory Penske Porsche 963 LMDh shared by Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell, and the Ferrari that had looked well set at the top of the leaderboard for a couple of hours in the middle of the race. 

The contest turned on a coming together between Estre and Alessandro Pier Guidi aboard the championship-leading Ferrari 499P Le Mans Hypercar with an hour and 45 minutes remaining. The Frenchman, winner of last year’s Hypercar drivers’ title with Vanthoor and Andre Lotterer, moved into the lead as the race went green after the fifth of six safety cars to punctuate a chaotic encounter that also included a red flag.

Contact was made as Estre dived up the inside into Turn 1 at the 3.43-mile Circuit of the Americas. It was the lightest of touches with the Ferrari Pier Guidi shared with Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado, but it was enough to puncture the left front Michelin tyre of the Italian car, sending it pitward and ending its chance of winning round six of the 2025 WEC. 

Ferrari wasn’t happy, but its complaint wasn’t directed at the contact between the two cars as Estre took the lead. Rather, it was upset about a clash several hundred metres earlier at the beginning of the start-finish straight as the safety car peeled into the pitlane. 

There was another touch, also oh so light, but it was enough for the Ferrari to lose momentum up the straight and for Estre to get into a position where he could make his ultimately successful bid for the lead. This was the incident upon which the race stewards directed their eyes, though Porsche confirmed that each of the contacts was examined.

The second was certainly a racing incident; Ferrari agreed with that. But it clearly questioned the decision of the stewards to only give Estre a warning for the earlier contact.

“A bit weird,” was how Giuliano Salvi, Ferrari’s sportscar race and testing manager described what came out of the stewards’ office in Austin. “I am a bit surprised in terms of the management of the situation. The touch was before the line. The leader should start the procedure [at the restart] and the other one should be behind.”

What he was saying is that it was down to Pier Guidi as the race leader to control the field at the restart unfettered by the car or cars behind once the safety car was in the pitlane. What happened at Turn 1, he argued, was the upshot of the little tap Pier Guidi received in the final corner.

“The one in Turn 1 was a racing incident, but it was a consequence of Estre being on the inside,” continued Salvi. “With a normal restart he wouldn’t have had the chance to make the dive.” Pier Guidi put it more simply: “I believe the move at the restart was not correct.” 

“It was not like I pushed him wide. There was room on the right: he just decided to turn while I was there. I couldn’t go anywhere” Kevin Estre

A contributing factor to the incident at Turn 20 was the unconventional line Pier Guidi was on. He had been directed by the AF Corse Ferrari team to take what Salvi called a “very internal line”. Pier Guidi was told to turn in late to be able to exploit the higher grip on the inside of the straight on exit. 

Estre, on the other hand, took a more conventional route around the left-hander. It kind of put them on a collision course and perhaps influenced the stewards in their decision not to penalise the Porsche man with a drive-through. Salvi’s point that it was down to Pier Guidi to control the field remained a valid one, though it would be wrong to suggest that Estre was ever alongside before the start-finish line. 

Jonathan Diuguid, Penske Racing president, insisted that it was all “just good, hard racing”. Of the T1 clash, Estre suggested that if anyone was to blame, it was Pier Guidi. “It was not like I pushed him wide,” he said. “There was room on the right: he just decided to turn while I was there. I couldn’t go anywhere.”

Ferrari reckons it would have continued its domination of WEC 2025 without the controversial restart clash

Photo by: FIAWEC – DPPI

This was a race that Ferrari believed it should have won and would have won but for the events of that fateful restart. But there is a big question mark as to whether Ferrari had the car to beat the Porsche given the German machine’s pace in the period straight after Estre took the lead.

He was able to pull away from Miguel Molina in the sister Ferrari with ease. By the end of the first post-restart lap, Estre was nearly six seconds up on the 499P. A lap later the gap was 7.8s. Two laps after that the margin was into double figures before the safety car was called again. Afterwards the Porsche quickly re-established some breathing space, before and after a quick-fire Full Course Yellow virtual safety car shortly before the five-hour mark. 

At this key moment of the race, the Porsche was the quicker car, though the Ferrari held that honour when conditions were at their worst and again as the track started to dry in the final hour (though never enough for any of the frontrunners to make the switch to slicks). 

“The car was great during that stage of the race,” reckoned Estre. “They had a bit of an upper hand when there was a lot of water and aquaplaning, and a little bit towards the end as well – it was harder for me to keep the gap then.”

That said, the 499P Molina shared with Nicklas Nielsen and Antonio Fuoco was the slower of the two Ferraris that weekend. Even so, Molina reckoned he lost at least a shot at the victory when he was delayed – he put the time loss at four or five seconds – during a second FCY in the final hour. He was caught up behind one of the TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette LMGT3 contenders, which the Spaniard suggested was going slower than the 80km/h allowed by the rules.

“The pace was there and I think we lost a lot with this FCY and the Corvette,” explained Molina. “That was a shame because we were catching the Porsche. It took away an opportunity.” Molina had reduced a deficit that stood at over eight seconds to under five before the FCY. It was back at eight straight afterwards. And that’s how it stood a dozen laps later at the chequered flag. The margin of victory for Porsche was 8.625s.

It was Porsche’s first WEC win since the penultimate round of 2024 at Fuji

Photo by: Andreas Beil

It can only be conjecture to say that Pier Guidi and co would have won but for the puncture, notwithstanding an impressive fightback from the Italian. He described his run to fifth as “almost a miracle”. 

Perhaps the only thing that can be said for sure about the Porsche versus Ferrari battle in Texas was that if it had been dry, there wouldn’t have been one. The 963 had taken a double Balance of Performance hit for last weekend and, reckoned Estre, would have been no more than a top six car but for the rain. 

Once the weather turned, this was a race that was probably always going to be won by Porsche or Ferrari, despite strong showings from Peugeot, which ended up third and fourth with its two 9X8 2024 LMHs, and Aston Martin. The British manufacturer looked well set for a podium with the car shared by Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble until an overheating problem linked to track debris clogging the radiators intervened.

“It could have been a whole lot better, but it could also have been a whole lot worse,” said Calado, referencing Pier Guidi’s ability to haul their 499P up to fifth. It at least meant the crew of the #51 Ferrari extended their lead at the head of the championship. Even so Pier Guidi reckoned it was difficult to “see the positive side of the race”

But there could have been another potential winner, and that was Cadillac. The US manufacturer effectively blew its chance of following up on its Interlagos victory in July as early as Saturday afternoon during first qualifying: the factory Jota opted to swap both its V-Series.Rs to wet tyres in light drizzle it was fully expecting to get harder. It didn’t, and the Caddys ended up down the order and out of the Hyperpole session for the fastest 10 cars. 

There was logic to what on the face of it looked like a mad decision. The V-Series.R isn’t the strongest member of the Hypercar pack in terms of tyre warm-up, so it was always going to struggle on a slightly damp track. But the Caddy is good in the rain, as the drivers showed during the race. Earl Bamber starred in the early going in the car he shared with Sebastien Bourdais and Jenson Button, and then Alex Lynn flew in the sister car, in which he was joined by Will Stevens and Norman Nato. 

Lynn was right with second-placed Molina from the restart at which the lead changed hands until giving the car over to Nato early in the final hour. The chance of a decent result disappeared as a result of a miscalculation on the fuel put into the car: Nato was back in the pits for a splash as the finish approached, despite taking over with 44 minutes to go.

It was a ‘what could have been’ weekend for Cadillac

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images

That resulted in the car ending up eighth, two places down on the sister car that had been delayed by a monster spin for Bourdais when conditions were at their worst and then attention to the wiper when Button was at the wheel. Lynn conceded that it was an opportunity missed for Cadillac. 

“Today in the wet we were really good,” he said. “If we could have started a bit further up, we could have looked good for a win.”

Ferrari left Texas with similar emotions, though tinged with aggrievement.

“It could have been a whole lot better, but it could also have been a whole lot worse,” said Calado, referencing Pier Guidi’s ability to haul their 499P up to fifth. It at least meant the crew of the #51 Ferrari extended their lead at the head of the championship. Even so, Pier Guidi reckoned it was difficult to “see the positive side of the race”.

The #51 Ferrari leads the championship by 15 points with two rounds remaining

Photo by: FIAWEC – DPPI