Lone Star Le Mans is back at COTA this weekend

The Le Mans circus parks in Austin for one weekend a year. This is that weekend.

Lone Star Le Mans is the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Texas round, Friday, Sep 4 through Sunday, Sep 6, at Circuit of the Americas. Practice Friday. Qualifying Saturday. The race is six hours on Sunday, green flag at 1 p.m. Thirty-five cars, two classes, eight factory Hypercar brands, and a GT3 field that looks like a Texas parking lot with the volume turned up: Corvette, Mustang, 911, Lexus, Mercedes, McLaren, BMW, Ferrari, Aston Martin.

If you know COTA from Formula 1, this is the other world championship that uses the same 20-turn track. Cheaper. More walkable. The cars stay out for six hours instead of 90 minutes, so you can actually watch a race instead of a sprint.

What you are looking at

WEC is the championship that includes the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Austin’s race is the same idea on a shorter clock. Two or three drivers share a car. They stop for fuel, tires, and driver changes. The team that covers the most distance in six hours wins.

Hypercar is the prototype class. Seventeen cars built to go to Le Mans. Toyota, BMW, Ferrari, Cadillac, Alpine, Aston Martin, Peugeot, and Genesis. Porsche walked away from this class for 2026, which still sounds wrong if you grew up watching 919s and 963s here. The 911s did not leave. They are in GT3.

LMGT3 is 18 cars based on street models. Mixed driver grades, so a gentleman racer and a factory driver share a cockpit. If you only care about badges you have seen on I-35, start here.

Why Texas has this race

Circuit of the Americas is the only FIA Grade 1 track in the United States. When the World Endurance Championship wants an American round, this is the place. It is also the only WEC race on the 2026 calendar that is on U.S. soil. If you want to see these cars without flying to Spa or Fuji, you drive to Del Valle.

That matters more than the marketing copy. Cadillac brought two V-Series.R Hypercars onto home pavement. Corvette is in GT3. Ford has Mustangs in the same class. Heart of Racing, the U.S. Aston Martin GT program, is on the list. Ricky Taylor, who Texas sports-car people know from Wayne Taylor Racing and IMSA, is in a Cadillac this weekend filling in for an injured Alex Lynn.

You can do Sunday as a day trip from Dallas or Houston and still be home that night. The race starts at 1 p.m. and ends around 7. September at COTA is hot. Bring water. The Turn 1 hill is the postcard. The paddock is where the cars look like cars, and that is a paid add-on, not the basic grounds pass.

A short history of the Texas six-hour

WEC first came to COTA on Sep 22, 2013, when the race was still called the 6 Hours of Circuit of the Americas. Tom Kristensen, Allan McNish, and Loïc Duval won it in an Audi R18. Kristensen is the most successful driver in Le Mans history. The first WEC race in Texas was won by the standard.

Audi won again in 2014. Then Porsche took over. Mark Webber, Timo Bernhard, and Brendon Hartley won in 2015 and 2016 in the 919 Hybrid. Hartley and Bernhard came back with Earl Bamber in 2017 and made it three in a row. The name Lone Star Le Mans stuck. Then the race went away. No WEC at COTA in 2018 or 2019. A one-off return in 2020, then nothing again until 2024.

Ferrari won the 2024 return with the customer AF Corse 499P. Last year Porsche was back on top, Penske’s No. 6 in the rain. That 963 is not on this year’s Hypercar grid. The manufacturer with the most wins here sat the prototype class out. The 911s are still in GT3. The prototypes belong to everyone else.

This is the ninth WEC visit to COTA. The gaps are part of the story. Texas does not get this field every year by default. When it shows up, it is worth knowing about.

This year’s fight, without the brochure

Toyota leads the manufacturers’ championship after four races. BMW is right there. Ferrari, Cadillac, Alpine, Aston Martin, Peugeot, and Genesis fill out the eight. Cadillac already won in Brazil and will be treated like a favorite on home asphalt.

Genesis Magma Racing is making its first U.S. race start in a debut WEC season. Two GMR-001 Hypercars, No. 17 and No. 19. They tested here in July in the heat. They have one points finish all year. They are on the grid. They are not the reason to go, or to watch.

When it runs

Times from the FIA WEC event page, local. Confirm on COTA’s schedule the morning of, that page has a timezone toggle.

Friday, Sep 4
Free Practice 1, 11:30 a.m. (90 minutes)
Free Practice 2, 4:00 p.m. (90 minutes)

Saturday, Sep 5
Free Practice 3, 11:00 a.m. to noon
LMGT3 qualifying and Hyperpole, 3:00 p.m.
Hypercar qualifying and Hyperpole, 3:40 p.m.

Sunday, Sep 6
Lone Star Le Mans, 1:00 p.m., six hours. Checkered flag around 7 p.m.

Tickets

Buy from COTA, not a random reseller.

Event: https://circuitoftheamericas.com/event/fia-world-endurance-championship/
Tickets: https://circuitoftheamericas.com/event/fia-world-endurance-championship/tickets/

Prices on COTA’s site as of Aug 31, 2026. Recheck at checkout.

3-day grounds pass: $74.50, fees included
Friday only: $31+
Saturday only: $66.80+
Sunday only: $66.80+

Paddock access is an add-on. You need a race ticket first. Parking needs a COTA-issued pass. Single-day parking is sold on site. COTA lists a student offer, but the hub and the student page do not agree on free versus paid, so click through and see what it actually is.

The track is at 9201 Circuit of the Americas Blvd, Austin, TX 78617, southeast of town in the Del Valle area, not downtown. Getting there: https://circuitoftheamericas.com/getting-to-cota/

How to watch if you are not in the grandstand

TNT Sports has U.S. rights this year. The Sunday race is on truTV and HBO Max at 2 p.m. Eastern, 1 p.m. Central, same time as the green flag.

truTV: https://www.trutv.com/
HBO Max: https://www.max.com/

The official stream is FIAWEC+, with the full weekend, onboard cameras, and replays.

https://plus.fiawec.com/en/fia-wec

FIA’s where-to-watch page: https://www.fiawec.com/en/page/ou-regarder-1