Toyota Leads Opening Hour; Drama for No. 6 Porsche

Photo: Javier Jimenez/DPPI

Toyota Gazoo Racing led the opening hour of the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, which saw drama for the Hypercar championship-leading No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport entry.

Mike Conway held a 12.096-second lead over the sister No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Brendon Hartley, following a somewhat challenging start for the Kiwi, who ran wide into Turn 1 but quickly regained the position.

The No. 5 Porsche 963 of Fred Makowiecki ran third, although contact between the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche of Will Stevens and Laurens Vanthoor’s No. 6 Porsche, while battling for fifth, resulted in a right-front puncture for the title leader, who was forced to make an unscheduled stop.

Stevens, meanwhile, was handed a 30-second stop-and-hold penalty for the incident.

Antonio Giovinazzi, meanwhile, ran fourth in the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, with Stevens in fifth prior to serving the penalty.

The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R, which started fourth, slipped back to sixth after appearing to struggle on Medium tires on the left-side in the opening stanza with Earl Bamber at the wheel.

Phil Hanson ran seventh in the sister JOTA Porsche, meanwhile, ahead of the two remaining Ferraris.

LMGT3 was led by the class pole-sitting No. 85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Sarah Bovy, ahead of the No. 92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R of Alex Malykhin.

The team’s sister No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche, meanwhile, suffered two incidents in the hands of Yasser Shahin, the first with the Bronze-rated Australian making contact with the No. 81 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Tom van Rompuy, resulting in a spin for both.

A second incident saw Shahin clobber the No. 54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Thomas Flohr, who had a spin earlier in the hour after contact with the No. 87 Akkoids ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3.

Shahin was assessed with a drive-through penalty for incident responsibly with the Lexus and a one-minute stop-and-hold infraction for running into Flohr.

The No. 55 AF Corse Ferrari of Francois Heriau ran third in class at the one-hour mark, ahead of the two United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evos.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John