After a lengthy break for both the FIA World Endurance Championship and myself (a lovely 2 week holiday in the Netherlands, if you’re wondering) and just one week before I head over to Silverstone for my first ever in person sportscar race we have the sixth round of the action packed series. With Aston Martin the big shock of the weekend so far can they continue their promising run here? And can Cadillac go back to back by taking a second win on home soil? 6 Hours will settle it.

With an hour on the clock to extract everything they could before qualifying later this evening the track was soon filled, with the early pace found by, perhaps unsurprisingly, Ferrari. Robert Kubica and the Le Mans winning #83 went fastest with a 1:51:967. Elsewhere, Harry Tincknell continued Aston Martin’s strong practice run by placing his #007 in 4th in the early running, just over four tenths of a second behind Kubica. And the sister #009 also showed promise by running in the top ten throughout the first half with Alex Riberas. Unfortunately for that car it slowed on track 20 minutes into the session with no warning.

Alpine have struggled of late, but they also showed their best pace of the weekend so far with both cars running in the top ten at times, with the #35 scoring the second fastest time fifteen minutes into proceedings thanks to a great lap from Charles Milesi.

A yellow flag meanwhile was called out for a spin, as considerable dust was kicked onto the track and James Cottingham’s #59 McLaren 720s LMGT3 spinning at the end of the esses. Thanks to intermittent rain in the days leading up to this weekend the track was greasy, and dust being brought onto the track during the hour didn’t help proceedings. Andrew Gilbert and Sebastian Baud of the #60 Iron Lynx Mercedes and the #59 McLaren were also caught out. It wasn’t only the LMGT3 runners finding the dust difficult to deal with as the Tom Gamble also had a high speed spin at the end of the esses in his #007 Aston just 10 minutes before the hour was up.

In LMGT3 meanwhile there was no single manufacturer who truly stapled themselves as the one to watch in Qualifying with Dutch youngster Lin Hodenius topping the timing sheets for the first 20 minutes ahead of Francois Heriau’s #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari, Darren Leung’s United Autosports #95 McLaren and the Proton-run #88 Ford Mustang of Giammarco Levorato.

Not even the announcement of a new signing for next year could lift Peugeot into the top ten in this session, once again failing to get the best out of the struggling 9X8 that’s never really had consistent performances at the sharp end of the field. Fingers crossed Nick Cassidy can do something about that then…

Also struggling were perhaps surprisingly BMW. It’s been a mixed bag of a year in 2025 for the German marque, who recently announced a redesign of the M V8 Hybrid’s front aero. The best they could do was 9 tenths of a second off the #83’s time with the #20 thanks to Sheldon Van Der Linde. The sister #15 car meanwhile was down in 16th at the halfway mark with Kevin Magnussen 2.2 seconds back.

Porsche and Toyota also looked off colour, with neither manufacturer able to penetrate the top six aside from Mathieu Jaminet’s lap that was the first timed of the session in the #5. That crew dropped of signinicantly as the session went on, and with 27 minutes left Micheal Christensen’s best lap was the worst of anyone in Hypercar. That a works Porsche is some 3 seconds slower than the fastest car is certainly an oddity in sportcar racing, and something I don’t think any of us are used to seeing. Toyota meanwhile were underwhelming with their best placing of 9th during the session in the #8, while the sister #7 was down in thirteenth in the final minutes. This on a weekend where Mike Conway was forced to sit out, and Jose Maria Lopez being brought in as his replacement.

Lexus took time to show their true hand, but Clemens Schmid eventually sent his #87 Akkodis ASP run car fastest in LMGT3 with just over 20 minutes to go.

A Full course yellow was then brought out for the #81 Corvette that with 20 minutes to go had only turned four laps stopped on track without warning, while track limits violations saw the #21 Ferrari handed a five minute stop and go penalty.

After five minutes of yellow flag conditions the session ran green again, and Ferrari continued to hold the top 2 spots of Hypercar without challenge, with the #35 Alpine still third.

Before the session was up there was one more change at the top of the LMGT3 table with Ben Tuck posting the fastest time of the session, a 2:05:947 while Jack Hawksworth snatched second on the timing sheets with the #87 Lexus, dropping Lin Hodenius’s #61 Mercedes to third.

And that concluded a revealing FP3 session. There’s a short wait now for qualifying which will set the tone for tomorrow.

thumbnail credit – United Autosports, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons