COTA Thursday Notebook

***A total of 36 cars are entered for the Lone Star Le Mans this weekend at the Circuit of The Americas, which is hosting its first FIA World Endurance Championship round since 2020. It marks the smallest field of the year so far, and follows Isotta Fraschini announcing the withdrawal of its solo Hypercar entry from the rest of the season.

***Besides the disappearance of Isotta Fraschini, the only change to the driver lineups compared to the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo is the addition of Ben Keating in the No. 88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3. Keating takes over from team owner Christian Ried, who in turn replaced Giorgio Roda in Brazil.

***Five outright winners at COTA are in this year’s field. Brendon Hartley scored three wins for Porsche in 2015, ’16 and ’17, while Loic Duval (2013), Andre Lotterer (2014), Earl Bamber (2017) and Norman Nato (2020) are all one-time winners.

***Mick Schumacher will race for Alpine at COTA as usual, despite media reports linking him to a Formula 1 drive with Williams in place of the axed Logan Sargeant starting with this weekend’s Italian Grand Prix. Instead, Formula 2 racer and sometime European Le Mans Series LMP2 driver Franco Colapinto was chosen to replace Sargeant.

***With Harry Tincknell reuniting with his Proton Competition team for the first time since the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Cadillac Racing is now the only team in the field with a two-driver line-up for COTA, with Bamber and Alex Lynn teaming up as usual.

***Lynn believes that the fresh resurfacing undertaken at COTA in the wake of last month’s Hypercar test, which was attended by the majority of manufacturers, could play into the hands of the Cadillac V-Series.R in the marque’s home WEC race.

***Lynn said: “The test in Austin went well. The circuit had not been repaved before we tested, though it has been repaved since with the new F1 tarmac. That won’t be too much of a surprise with how our car will react. I believe our car works well on European tarmac tracks like Qatar and Imola, which recently were repaved FIA-grade tracks.”

***Race day at COTA, Sept. 1, coincides with ‘Pink Cadillac Day’, which the GM brand describes as an “unofficial U.S. holiday” that celebrates its “unique place in pop culture and luxury”. A V-Series.R decked out in pink will be on display in the Grand Plaza throughout the weekend.

***Sportscar365 has learned that the appeal lodged by Ferrari AF Corse on the results of the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps will be heard by the FIA Court of Appeals on Sept. 3 in Geneva.

***The Italian squad appealed against the stewards’ decision on May 15 after AF Corse’s protest, claiming the race’s resumption was not in accordance with the WEC sporting regulations, was rejected.

***WEC CEO Frederic Lequien is absent from COTA having broken his elbow while out cross-country cycling. It’s currently unclear if he will recover in time for the next round at Fuji in two weeks.

***The Medium and Hard-compound Michelin tires will be available to Hypercar runners this weekend, as was the case in Sao Paulo last month, although temperatures are slated to be significantly higher than they were in Brazil.

***IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship title contender Mathieu Jaminet is serving as Porsche Penske Motorsport’s reserve driver this weekend. The Frenchman will be on standby in Austin, unlike the last WeatherTech Championship GTP race at Road America, where Matt Campbell was on reserve duties within the continental U.S.

***IMSA President John Doonan and SRO America President and CEO Greg Gill are among those expected to be on-site this weekend from the U.S. sports car racing organizations. Both the IMSA-sanctioned Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America and Mustang Challenge are support series this weekend.

***Mustang Challenge’s next and season-ending round, meanwhile, will be at Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the SRO America-run Indianapolis 8 Hour powered by AWS weekend on Oct. 3-5.

***Laurens Vanthoor and Tom van Rompuy arrived in Austin having just completed the 24 Hours of Zolder, where they finished fifth in a Porsche 992 GT3 Cup they shared with Van Rompuy’s father Dirk and Porsche factory racer Ayhancan Guven. Although the team led a substantial portion of the race, a brake issue on Sunday curtailed a potential victory. The win went to another Porsche Cup car, entered by NGT Racing and spearheaded by 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans class winner and Nissan SUPER GT racer Bertrand Baguette.

***Elsewhere, Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Nyck de Vries has travelled to COTA directly from Japan, having contested last weekend’s Super Formula round at Motegi for Team Impul. He finished 13th, one place behind his Toyota WEC co-driver Kamui Kobayashi.

***Team WRT’s Valentino Rossi is visiting COTA for the first time since 2019, when he narrowly lost out on victory to Alex Rins in that year’s MotoGP race.

***Rossi said: “I am very happy to go back there because it is a fantastic track and I raced there a lot of times in MotoGP. The track is very interesting, with the MotoGP bike it’s great. I think that it will be great fun also with the BMW M4 GT3.”

***Longtime Corvette Racing photographer and author Richard Prince will be inducted into the National Corvette Museum Hall of Fame on Saturday. Prince has been one of the longest-running members of the Corvette Racing team, having been the manufacturer’s photographer since the program’s inception.

***Prince is being inducted alongside former Corvette Racing factory drivers Oliver Gavin and Jan Magnussen, as well as newly retired Corvette executive chief engineer Tadge Juechter.

***Work has progressed on the Vanwall Vandervell 680 LMH car, which recently completed a rolling wind tunnel test at the Catesby Tunnel Vehicle Test Facility in the UK with its new powerplant from Pipo Moteurs. Tristan Vautier carried out driving duties of the Hypercar.

***Vanwall previously expressed hopes of returning to the WEC grid next year, which could now become a reality depending on the outcome of Isotta Fraschini’s attempt to find a new operational partner. The entries are all subject to the WEC selection committee.

***Track action begins on Friday with Free Practice 1 at 12:40 p.m. local time (1:40 p.m. EDT), with Free Practice 2 set to follow at 5:10 p.m. local time (6:10 p.m. EDT).

John Dagys and Davey Euwema contributed to this report