The World Endurance Championship hosted their annual pre-season test, called the Prologue, at the end of last week at the Lusail International Circuit. With no live coverage and a lot of track time, it can be hard to work out what's really going on.
Here are the seven key storylines emerging from the running in Qatar.
It's tight at the top, really tight
It's what every WEC fan wants to hear, but the competition at the top is looking closer than ever heading into the 2025 season.
Four different manufacturers topped the overall times across the two days, a first for the championship, as Ferrari, Cadillac, Porsche and BMW all shared the limelight.
However the real battle is on the long run pace. OE ran the numbers over the weekend and found that across all four sessions, Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA and the factory Ferraris are separated by just four thousandths of a second per lap, with BMW WRT just two tenths further back.
Reliability concerns continue into third season
Top flight sportscars are often seen as bullet proof, and rightly so given their ability to be regularly held to their limit for up to 24 hours. Reliability woes, however, are not a thing of the past and even the big guns are vulnerable.
During the first session of the Prologue, the reigning championship-winning #6 Porsche Penske 963 stopped on track with a concerning engine failure – the first of its kind for the all-conquering LMDh.
The team are confident that they have diagnosed the issue, but it comes as a stark reminder that even in this high-tech new era, nothing is guaranteed.
The Valkyrie's positive first steps
The Aston Martin may not have challenged at the top of the one lap, or long run pace, but that's not the goal.
The v12-powered LMH machines, ironically, quietly set about collecting significant mileage across the two days tallying 549 laps and establishing a baseline for their first race event without any major disruption to their run plan.
Harry Tincknell's best time at the wheel of the #007 in Session 4 placed him as the 23rd fastest driver of 54, suggesting that when being given a push the Valkyrie can offer more.
There's relative cause for optimism, but still a long way to go for the newcomers.
Are Alpine the dark horse?
Ferrari and Cadillac ended the Prologue weekend as the quickest, but don't rule out Alpine as having 'une petite surprise' to offer in 2025.
The French manufacturer may have suffered their fair share of issues in 2024, but that Fuji podium suggests the tide was turning. Our long run data suggests that the pair of A424s have shuffled up the order, challenging Cadillac and Ferrari across the four sessions (notably in the race-relevant Session 4).
Granted, they will still need to take another step in order to beat the established names, but there's positivity heading into year two of the programme.
Lexus, Ferrari and Corvette show progress
Heading into the second season of the LMGT3 class, there are three marques looking to improve on last year's results.
Lexus, Ferrari and Corvette all showed strong pace across the Prologue, with the Akkodis ASP RC Fs topping both sessions on Friday.
The #78, the #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari and #33 TF Sport Corvette were the only cars to feature in the top five in every session, suggesting that they have the balance across the day-dusk-night conditions.
2023 GTE AM champion Ben Keating makes his return to the WEC in that #33 Corvette, and posted the 16th fastest time, and with 2024 Qatar pole-sitter Tom van Rompuy just half a second back, the times suggest the Z06 GT3.R is the strongest in the hands of the Bronze drivers.
Silver selection crucial to LMGT3 success
Mandatory to every LMGT3 driver crew is a Silver driver. Nestled amongst the headline-grabbing pro driver and the all-important Bronze, the Silvers are often overlooked – but with new rules and multiple moves in this part of the driver market, 2025 looks to shine the light on this set of drivers.
LMGT3 qualifying will have an updated format this year, where Bronze drivers compete in a knock-out 12 miunte session to secure their car a spot in Hyperpole, before handing over to their Silver teammates who will then decide the top-10 positions in the 10 minute session. Previously the Bronze drivers would do both sessions.
Vista AF Corse, Heart of Racing, TF Sport, Akkodis ASP and United Autosport all have reason to be pleased, sharing six drivers all making the top ten overall fastest laps in the class during the Prologue.
The #21 and #54 were 1-2, Simon Mann's fastest 1:54.790 was just two-hundredths faster than Francesco Castellacci, Zacharie Robichon was over a tenth further back in the #27 Aston Martin, WEC debutants Johnny Edgar and Finn Gehrsitz of the #33 and #78 respectively both dipped under the 1:55 mark, with United Autosport's new signing Sebastien Baud the sixth fastest Silver.
Every kilogram matters in closest sportscar era
Shortly after the Prologue, the WEC have introduced a new system of 'Compensation Ballast' to minimise the weight differences between cars as a result of individual driver weight.
The system has been introduced after calls from a number of drivers towards the end of 2024 to balance the cars evenly. Ferrari's James Calado was the most vocal on the matter, even admitting to unintentionally hospitalising himself in an effort to lose weight.
WEC's new system sees ballast added to the average weight across three drivers in order to clear a regulated minimum of 82kg.
Case in point that in this extremely competitive era of sportscar racing, every kilogram matters.
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