Motorsport Week picked five main storylines from an exhilarating Qatar 1812 km, the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship season-opener.
The race on 28 February marked the second consecutive running of the Qatari race since opening the season last year.
Over the course of 10 hours, the captivating race narrative incorporated action, close wheel-to-wheel and nose-to-tail racing and dramatic moments.
A grid of 36 sports cars took on the event hosted at the Lusail International Circuit with exactly half in the glorious Hypercar category and the other half comprised of LMGT3 competitors.
In comparison to the other Middle Eastern circuit on the calendar, Bahrain, Qatar does not prose the same low grip conditions to accentuate the same tyre degredation management.
Whilst teams were still challenged with making use of their limited sets, such as changing left-side tyres only, the race managed a great racing spectacle demonstrating the hierarchy of Hypercar manufacturers’ performances as well as teasing the thrills and spills of LMGT3 in the upcoming seven rounds.
Read our Hypercar and LMGT3 race reports:
- Ferrari sweep podium with dominant 1-2-3 at Qatar
- Daniel Juncadella fends off McLaren towards Corvette LMGT3 victory in Qatar
Unlucky fire for Proton
It was an unfortunate coincidence that one of Proton Competition’s two Ford Mustang LMGT3 entries retired at the end of last season in Bahrain, then due to a fire in the Prologue and again during the Qatar 1812 km.
The Ford Mustang package began the 2025 season on a high in the IMSA 24 Hours of Daytona. It secured victory in the GTD Pro category, the first IMSA class win for the Mustang in 40 years.
At the 8 Hours of Bahrain last year, both the #77 and #88 Fords retired as the Prologue and Qatar 1812 km fires concerned solely the #77.
During the Prologue’s first of four sessions, the #77 only completed 11 laps before catching fire with Ben Tuck on-board – though safe from any injury – due to a faulty exhaust header.
A new car was built with a new chassis in preparation for the first free practice session. The driver line-up were at a significant disadvantage with such little track-time.
The #77 qualified antepenultimate in the LMGT3 order whilst the #88 reached Hyperpole.
Tuck briefly raced for the lead against Sebastien Baud (#59 McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo) and Finn Gehrsitz (#78 Lexus RC F LMGT3) four hours in.
After the halfway mark, smoke filled the #77’s cockpit as Bernardo Sousa headed down the main straight, prompting him to stop at Turn 1 as a fire ensued after he got out.
This fire overshadowed their brief form of competitive performance with the #88 crew managing a P10 finish at the end.
Toyota’s worthy comeback
The reigning Hypercar Manufacturers’ champions conducted a superb comeback performance in Qatar.
Toyota are subtly regarded as the benchmark in the WEC due to their longevity of experience. Their GR010 Hybrid has competed in each Hypercar season since the debut 2021 season.
Most importantly, their high status is not just due to their level of experience as five consecutive Le Mans victories and seven WEC Manufacturers’ titles are just a mere sign of their refined performances from both the mechanics during pit stops and the drivers.
The drama started in Hyperpole, when Brendon Hartley spun around on a fast lap consequently resulting in his #8 Toyota starting last in the 18-strong Hypercar category.
Sebastien Buemi masterfully climbed up the field during the opening hour, having fought hard during the process.
In fact, his #8 Toyota ran P6 just ahead of the #7 Toyota of Mike Conway, who started in that position on the grid.
Toyota kept out of harms way as other cars clashed around them in addition to a strong effort as a team to the point until they hunted down Ferrari’s trio of 499Ps for the outright lead.
Their comeback was ‘textbook Toyota’ in that they utilised the various race disruptions to optimise their tyre set and use their ample experience on the strategy-front, in order to keep in contention towards the upper end of the grid,
Fifth and sixth finishes for the #8 followed by the #7 was the result of a great team performance although they only reside third in the Hypercar Manufacturers’ standings until next time at Imola where they won last year.
Disaster for JOTA’s Cadillacs
Both Cadillac’s colliding easily distinguished the most dramatic moment of the Qatar 1812 km.
They had seemingly controlled the race ahead of the green flag, following the first (virtual) safety car period.
Both of the JOTAs ran with one another in the debut race for the Cadillac partnership and demonstrated competitive form so as to bring intrigue whether they could hold off the three Ferraris behind.
Shockingly, both made contact in an unusual and avoidable situation.
Alex Lynn misjudged Jenson Button’s restart who braked after seemingly putting the power down in his #38 Cadillac V-Series.R, resulting in the #12 Cadillac enduring significant front-end damage and rear-left for the #38.
In a moment’s notice, JOTA threw away a potential victory charge in their first race with Cadillac.
Extensive repairs were carried out especially for the #38 as they finished eighth and 16th by the end.
LMGT3 runs down to the wire
Under half-a-second. Or 0.493 to be specific. That was the margin which separated the LMGT3 class-winning #33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R and the #59 United Autosports McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo at the checkered flag.
LMGT3 began with a tame fight for the lead, headed by Akkodis ASP’s #78 Lexus extending his gap as far as over a minute ahead of second place.
The first pit stop sequence saw the McLarens retake their top spots but the end of the race could not have been more tense, especially after a drive-through penalty ended the pole-sitting #95 McLaren’s pursuit for victory.
Daniel Juncadella ran in the lead with 30 minutes remaining of the 10-hour race and Gregoire Saucy was behind him, gradually closing on the Corvette’s tail and narrowing the gap.
Juncadella defended as strongly as he could whilst Saucy was in a state of attack, though it must be credited the two drivers performed excellently in not ruining their encounter with any high risk moves which could have ended their fight and resulted in an accident.
The gap went down as close as two-tenths as Juncadella emerged victorious after what certainly felt like much more than 30 minutes.
READ MORE: LMGT3 winner Daniel Juncadella admits ‘a lot of pressure’ in Qatar
A learning curve for the debutants
At the Qatar 1812 km, there were two debuting efforts – Iron Lynx with Mercedes-AMG’s WEC debut and Aston Martin’s Hypercar debut with their new Valkyrie.
Firstly with the Heart of Racing-Valkyrie programme, this marked the first race for them after an extensive development and pre-homologation process.
We can refer to the start of other Hypercar programmes on the grid, and how their debuts were largely uncompetitive on long term pace in addition to reliability issues.
Race conditions provided the most useful data in regards to pace relative to their rivals and the search for outlying weaknesses or reliability issues from what is simply the beginning of the project. The #007 officially retired due to a transmission issue as the #009 ended 17th.
Whilst the debut results may not look promising, what crucially matters is the rate of progress for the programme especially ahead of the Valkyrie’s 24 Hours of Le Mans debut in June.
As for the Mercedes-AMG, one has to question if the newly implemented torque sensors had an impact such as their eight other manufacturers during last year’s season.
It was a puzzling and underwhelming debut for Mercedes with the renowned LMGT3 package which found success like at the 24 Hours of Nurburgring (2016 victory), multiple wins at the 12 Hours of Bathurst and the 24 Hours of Spa win in 2022 by the Akkodis ASP team.
Alike with the Valkyrie project, though not necessarily with a ‘brand-new’ car, Iron Lynx need to dig deep to reflect on where they can find pace and reliability with a triple threat for Le Mans.
READ MORE: Le Mans 24 Hours provisional entry list features 62 entries
