Barcelona Round Set for Unusual Saturday Schedule, Split FP3

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Next month’s 6 Hours of Barcelona is set for an unusual-looking Saturday schedule in order to better accommodate drivers hoping to contest both the penultimate FIA World Endurance Championship race of the season and the clashing Portimao GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS season finale.

According to a draft weekend timetable seen by Sportscar365, the WEC’s LMGT3 and Hypercar classes will have their own standalone Free Practice 3 sessions on Saturday in what’s believed to be a first in series history.

Instead of taking place back-to-back, the two categories’ respective qualifying sessions will also be held several hours apart, in order to give LMGT3 drivers also wishing to participate at Portimao more time to travel to the Portuguese venue.

The three-hour Portimao race is due to begin at 5 p.m. local time which gives the LMGT3 runners approximately five-and-a-half hours once qualifying finishes at 12:20 p.m. to make the trip (Portugal is one hour behind Spain).

Once LMGT3 qualifying is over, attention will switch over to the Hypercar class, which will have its own hour-long FP3 session shortly afterwards, before qualifying for the top class begins at 3:40 p.m.

The schedule for Friday remains similar to other WEC events this year, with two 90-minute practice sessions for both classes planned.

The start of the race itself is slated for noon local time on Sunday.

WEC’s clash with the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup finale was a byproduct of the decision to replace the Qatar 1812km and 8 Hours of Bahrain with visits to Barcelona and Monza amid ongoing uncertainty in the Middle East.

BMW has already decided that Raffaele Marciello, along with LMGT3 drivers Augusto Farfus and Dan Harper, will focus only on Barcelona, while the other impacted Hypercar drivers are Daniel Juncadella (Genesis Magma Racing), Jules Gounon (Alpine) and Nicklas Nielsen (Ferrari AF Corse) and Marco Sorensen (Heart of Racing Team).

Juncadella and Gounon are understood to be likely to join Marciello in skipping the Portimao event, which raises the question of who will join Chris Lulham in the Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

It has been speculated that Max Verstappen himself could race for his eponymous team as the GTWC Europe finale falls on a free weekend for Formula 1, between the Singapore and United States Grands Prix.

A full draft timetable for the 6H Barcelona can be seen below, with times remaining subject to change in the run-up to the event.

Barcelona WEC Timetable (as of Sep. 26, all times CET)

Friday Oct. 16
Free Practice 1 — 11:30-13:00
Free Practice 2 — 16:30-18:00

Saturday Oct. 17
Free Practice 3 (LMGT3) — 08:50-09:50
Qualifying (LMGT3) — 11:50-12:02
Hyperpole (LMGT3) — 12:10-12:20
Free Practice 3 (Hypercar) — 12:40-13:40
Qualifying (Hypercar) — 15:40-15:52
Hyperpole (Hypercar) — 16:00-16:10

Sunday Oct. 18
Race — 12:00-18:00

Source: Sports Car 365