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Photo: RacingPixels/Creventic AF Motorsport was stripped of pole position for the Michelin 992 Endurance Cup after driver Dylan Pereira was penalized for a track limits infraction, handing pole position to Mühlner Motorsport. Pereira had blasted to pole in the top five shootout on Friday afternoon, securing a 1.757 gap to the rest of the field. However, the Portuguese-Luxembourgish driver was handed a post-session penalty which will see the No. 17 AF Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 Cup – the only Pro-Am class entry in the nine-car field – start the race in fifth position. As a result, pole position was handed to regular entrants Mühlner after Conrad Tox Leveau set the second-fastest time with a 2:21.627 lap. The Belgian team will lead the field to green on Saturday morning, with Tox Leveau sharing driving duties in the No. 21 Porsche with Joshua Bednarski and Roland Saca. LMR Motorsport have been promoted up to second on the grid after the stewards decision, ahead of Chazel ...

Photo: Fabrizio Boldoni/DPPI Ferrari set the pace in the first Free Practice for this weekend’s Lone Star Le Mans event as the FIA World Endurance Championship returned from its summer break with Antonio Giovinazzi heading a Prancing Horse 1-2. Giovinazzi clocked a 1:53.824 aboard the No. 51 Ferrari 499P in the opening third of the 90-minute session to set a benchmark that was three-tenths adrift of the quickest time from FP1 at this event last year. Temperatures were significantly cooler in Austin than they had been on Thursday, with cloudy conditions meaning a high of only 86 degrees Fahrenheit (30 degrees Celsius) was reached. The sister factory Ferrari was second quickest, with Antonio Fuoco posting a 1:54.029 in the No. 50 machine to finish up two-tenths shy of his teammate. Ferrari’s closest challenger ended up being the No. 36 Alpine A424 of Victor Martins, who was one of the few drivers to improve in the final 30 minutes of the session to finish on a 1:54.223. ...

Photo: Wes Duenkel/Ford Cole Loftsgard led the way in opening practice for this weekend’s Mustang Challenge North America season finale at Circuit of The Americas. The Round 3 Racing driver, who enters the final two rounds with a 170-point lead over Devin Anderson, reeled off a best time of 2:20:510 in Friday morning’s 30-minute session. Loftgard’s chart-topping time, which came in a last-lap improvement, was 0.486 seconds faster than the No. 34 Wheelhouse Motorsports Ford Mustang Dark Horse R of Will Lucas, who ended up second quickest. Anderson, in the No. 22 TechSport Racing entry, was third quickest, while Tate Pritt and Ethan Low completed the top-five in their Automatic Raxcing and Flying Lion Motorsports entries, respectively. Sandy Satullo, meanwhile, was sixth quickest. Wheelhouse team owner Dan McKeever topped the Dark Horse Legends time charts in his series debut. McKeever posted the seventh quickest time overall and was nearly one-second quicker tha...

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI Hypercar teams will face reduced stint lengths in this weekend’s 6 Hours of Circuit of The Americas, which Toyota Racing driver Brendon Hartley believes will change the strategy “quite a bit.” Sportscar365 understands that all Hypercars will have less maximum stint energy compared to previous FIA World Endurance Championship races this season, enough so that will require a seventh stop in the race. Toyota Racing technical director David Floury told Sportscar365 that the reduction is in the range of 10-15 percent, equally for all cars. According to Hartley, it will result in all competitors having 3-4 laps less per stint compared to last year’s race. “Everyone has a lot less energy than previous races, which means the stints will be quite a bit shorter, just from regulation,” Hartley told Sportscar365. “It’s significant because it means rather than a pretty clear six-stint race, it then all of a sudden becomes a...

Photo: Andrea Lorenzina/DPPI Pipo Derani believes the next step for Genesis Magma Racing “will be critical” to ensure the team will be consistent contenders for top-five finishes and be in the mix with the likes of Toyota and Ferrari amid an increasingly competitive Hypercar field in the FIA World Endurance Championship. The Brazilian driver, who along with Andre Lotterer were announced as the first two drivers for the ground-up program, have been part of the Korean manufacturer’s venture into sports car racing from the start and has seen “massive” progress at various stages. However, he has cautioned that a further step needs to be made soon in order to ensure the program can show up in its sophomore season near the front of the pack. While having shown flashes of potential this season, the two-car squad has scored only a single points finish, an eighth pace result for Derani and co-drivers Lotterer and Mathys Jaubert in the No. 17 Genesis GMR-001 at ...

Photo: JEP/SRO Thomas Neubauer has been ruled out of next weekend’s Suzuka 1000km, and likely additional races, after suffering a complex fracture of his left collarbone in a cycling accident. The Ferrari factory driver was due to share the Maezawa Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo in the Intercontinental GT Challenge round with Yusaku Maezawa and Naoki Yokomizo. The 27-year-old Frenchman revealed the extent of his injuries on social media on Thursday . “A few days ago, I was involved in a cycling crash,” he wrote on Instagram. “Despite always being very careful, sometimes accidents are unfortunately unavoidable. “I fell off my bike and, among other injuries, I suffered a complex fracture of my left collarbone, with at least seven fragments and significant displacement of the bones. “I had surgery on Tuesday, and everything went well. I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. “I would sincerely like to thank all the medical staff who to...

Photo: Nissan The grid for this month’s Suzuka 1000km has been boosted by the late addition of an extra Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 entered by Super Taikyu outfit Team Daishin. Announced on Thursday, just over a week before track action is set to begin for the fourth round of the Intercontinental GT Challenge season, the Bronze class entry sporting Daishin’s famous orange livery provisionally brings the grid up to 29 cars. Sharing driving duties will be two-time SUPER GT champion Tsugio Matsuda, Kiyoto Fujinami and FIA Bronze-rated Ryuichiro Oyagi. The news means that Nissan is set to be represented by three cars at Suzuka, with Team Daishin joining 5ZIGEN and Tomei Sports in running the GT-R. Matsuda, who stepped down from his Nissan GT500 duties at the end of last season, last raced the GT-R NISMO GT3 in the 2019 edition of the Suzuka 10 Hours for KCMG, finishing sixth in that race alongside Katsumasa Chiyo and Josh Burdon. The 47-year-old has remained active in Super Taik...