Valentino Rossi’s COTA WEC race scuppered by late breakdown

The #46 WRT BMW LMGT3 car driven by Valentino Rossi, Ahmad Al Harty and Maxime Martin retired 15 minutes from the end of the Austin World Endurance Championship race.

The car bearing MotoGP legend Rossi’s famous #46 shot up from 15th in the class to fifth in the opening stint of last Sunday’s Lone Star Le Mans at the Circuit of the Americas.

Al Harty put the car into a strong position in that stint, while that strong pace was maintained by team-mates Rossi and Martin.

Running inside the top five as the finish neared, the car developed a hydraulics issue with 15 minutes to go and was forced to retire.

“The weekend had some ups and downs,” WRT team boss Vincent Vosse said.

“Of course, we are not happy with the final result but there are also some very positive things to take away.

“We were the only ones who could keep up with the Ferrari [in Hypercar] for the first half of the race and that was a very positive point.

“Now we have to learn how to do it until the end of the race without making any mistakes.

“But let’s be positive and focus on the next race which is in two weeks in Fuji. In LMGT3, it has been a disappointing result.

“We did what we could with car #31. We had a technical failure on car #46, which we know was a power steering issue, however we will investigate further to discover the cause of the failure.

“Our opponents finished in front of us, so we lost some points again to the two leaders. We must see how we can improve this in Fuji.”

The #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin won the LMGT3 class at COTA, while the remaining WRT car was the #31 in fifth.

Outright victory and top honours in the Hypercar class went to the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of ex-Formula 1 racer Robert Kubica, Robert Shwartzman and Yifie Ye.

Rossi’s first season in the WEC has been a mixed affair, with the #46 car scoring a podium at Imola but so far failing to replicate this since.

Ahead of the weekend, Rossi felt his prior track knowledge from his days in MotoGP - having ridden at COTA between 2013 and 2021 - was going to serve him well.

“I am always faster and better in the track that I know with the motorcycle,” Rossi told Sportscar365.

“Because you can carry [over] a lot of things. You know the track, you know the lines, you know where you have the bumps, the grip and everything.

“But for sure, with the GT from some point of view, it’s very different. Because you can cut a lot, you can make different lines.

“But at the end, the track is the same. So it’s a good advantage to know the track with the bike.”