The Circuit of the Americas has been kind to Ferrari in each of the two years it has hosted the FIA World Endurance Championship. In 2024 the number 51 crew of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi took pole position, while the number 83 of Yifei Ye, Robert Kubica and Robert Shwartzman converted that into a race victory on 1 September 2024, with Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen completing an all-Ferrari top three in the number 50. Twelve months later the number 83 crew started from pole again, this time with Ye and Kubica joined by Oliver Hanson, though the race itself, run largely in torrential rain, ended with second place for the number 50 and fifth for the number 51. Those results came in conditions that could scarcely have been more different from one year to the next, a detail Ferrari's own preview describes as evidence of "the car's great adaptability to the American circuit" (Ferrari Press Office, https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#all/1a03e1c5a78a08f0).
The fifth round of the 2026 season, formally titled the Lone Star Le Mans, begins at 1 p.m. local time on Sunday 6 September. Two 90-minute free practice sessions run on Friday 4 September from 11.30 a.m. and 4 p.m. A third session on Saturday 5 September runs from 11 a.m. to noon, with Qualifying at 3.40 p.m. and Hyperpole at 4 p.m. All times are local.
The team arrives carrying momentum from Interlagos, where the number 51 crew finished second, giving Ferrari its third podium from four rounds after a second place at Imola for the same crew and a third place at Spa-Francorchamps for the number 50. In the manufacturers' standings Ferrari sits third with 88 points, 44 behind the leaders. In the drivers' championship, Pier Guidi, Calado and Giovinazzi are fourth on 57 points, 18 off the top. Ye, Hanson and Kubica are ninth on 31 points; Fuoco, Molina and Nielsen are 11th on 29.
A clean sweep at COTA is worth 25 points to the winning crew and the corresponding manufacturers' tally. [ANALYSIS] Even a maximum 25-point haul from a single race would reduce the manufacturers' deficit to 19 points, which, taken against the three rounds still to follow, now confirmed as Barcelona on 18 October and Monza on 8 November after Qatar and Bahrain were removed from the calendar during the summer break, would at least return Ferrari to contention in arithmetic terms. Whether that is achievable in practice depends on a six-hour race that has already produced two sharply contrasting editions across its short history at the venue.
[OPINION] COTA represents Ferrari's clearest opportunity yet in 2026 to convert a consistent but ultimately second-tier points return into a credible championship threat. Three podiums from four races is a solid foundation, but 44 points is a large margin in a championship where the weather, as 2025 demonstrated, can redistribute the order entirely. The team arrives with the best circuit record of any in the Hypercar class at this venue, and that counts for something. It is not, on its own, enough.
