Sao Paulo Saturday Notebook

Photo: Jurgen Tap/Porsche

***Six Hours of Sao Paulo pole-sitter Alex Lynn believes that the recent resurfacing of Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace, better known as Interlagos, has helped the Cadillac V-Series.R, potentially more than its competition in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

***Lynn told Sportscar365: “Every time we turn up to a track and they’ve resurfaced it, it tends to help us quite a lot. Like Spa, COTA last year was better, even Le Mans every time they resurface sections, we seem to perform better.”

***The Englishman, who will share his No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac with Will Stevens and Norman Nato, told Sportscar365 that’s he thinks they’re “locked in” to use Michelin’s Medium compound for the entire race, a strategy call that propelled Toyota to victory in last year’s running. “I don’t see us using the Hard, personally, unless a heat wave turns up tomorrow,” said Lynn. “I see us on the Medium the whole race.”

***Penske Racing competition director Travis Law said they’re “prepared” to use “whatever tire is working at the time” tomorrow, although admitted they’ve only run the Medium compound so far this weekend.

***Law, however, indicated he expects teams to take different strategies. The forecast for tomorrow calls for similar ambient temperatures to last year’s race. “I think you’re going to see different manufacturers do different things,” he said. “I don’t think everybody’s going to be on the same tires for the race.”

***All of the previous winners of the WEC 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, which ran from 2012-14 and restarted last year, have come from the front row of the grid.

***Sebastien Bourdais described his impeding of Paul di Resta during the first stage of qualifying as “unintentional” admitting he had lost sight of the No. 93 Peugeot 9X8 before realizing the Scot was closing on him rapidly.

***Bourdais told Sportscar365: “To be honest, they told me he was pushing behind, and I was trying to see where he was. Then the nature of the track being so twisty, lost him in the last two corners. And then I saw Peugeot again, from quite far, and I thought he had backed up [but] it was the other one. Then by the time I realized that he was there, he was in my gearbox in the last corner.”

***In addition to the No. 38 Cadillac, which lost its front row starting position, the No. 99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 of Nico Varrone was also given a one-position grid penalty due to impeding the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Antonio Fuoco during a fast lap in qualifying.

***Peugeot had its best-ever qualifying session, with Malthe Jakobsen qualifying fourth and di Resta in sixth. “It was my first qualifying session in WEC and I want to thank the team for trusting me and giving me a comfortable and competitive car,” said Jakobsen. “I really enjoyed both sessions—it was thrilling to push this Hypercar to the limit with low fuel to go for the best lap possible.”

***Alex Riberas admitted he was “a little gutted” after narrowly missing out on Hyperpole with the No. 009 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie, coming up short by a margin of 0.037 seconds.

***He told Sportscar365: “It’s a bit of a mixed feeling today, because I am very proud of the whole team and very honored to be part of a team that is showing so much progress. To see the car evolve and get better and better each weekend speaks volumes about the quality of the team. So just a privilege and an honor to be a part of it, to be honest. But at the same time, a little gutted because we were just so close.”

***Heart of Racing Team’s run at the Goodwood Festival of Speed on Saturday has resulted in a €500 ($584 USD) fine by the FIA because the team did not declare its attendance for the “special testing” session at least five days in advance, per the WEC sporting regulations. The team’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship driver Ross Gunn was at the wheel for the run up the hill.

***Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle confirmed that further Evo jokers could be deployed for next year on the Porsche 963, with the German manufacturer looking at “every area” on the car. Porsche has so far used three of the five jokers permitted through the end of the 2027 WEC and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship seasons.

***Kuratle said: “Internally, we are considering doing some changes for next year. We only have so many jokers. We have to deal wisely with them and we have to try to get the best out of it, of the remaining jokers we have until the end of 2027. We’re constantly evaluating but it’s nothing decided yet.”

***The lone support series in action is the GT Series Cup Brasil, which features a 13-car field of GT3 and GT4 machinery for its pair of 40-minute races. The GT3 cars are reportedly running unrestricted, with very similar lap times to the leading LMGT3 cars.

***Stuttgart Motorsport, which fields both a GT3 and GT4 entry in the Brazilian series, assisted Iron Dames when they visited Interlagos for a two-day test in May, providing most notably a Porsche 911 GT3 R to use. All three of the team’s WEC drivers were present, with Celia Martin getting the opportunity to turn her first laps at the Interlagos circuit.

***Michelle Gatting additionally told Sportscar365 that a key objective of the test was to run on Goodyear’s Eagle Hard compound tire, which makes its competitive debut this weekend. “It was very useful because we needed to see the new tire, how it’s working,” she said. “Manthey went testing here last year as well, so it made sense that we went. It was a very useful day day. We drove until it was completely dark and did a lot of laps. It was very useful for Celia.”

***Gatting, who makes her first WEC appearance since suffering a foot injury at the 24 Hours of Le Mans test day, has returned to racing action despite still being on crutches.

***She said: “I’m just happy I’m able to race. I don’t have any problems being in the car. I’m happy it’s not the left foot, because that would be more complicated to put 130-140 kilos pressure on a foot that is still broken. So luckily, it’s only the throttle. I can obviously still not use the foot 100 percent because the bigger bone is still broken. That’s why I use the crutches and I really try to minimize using the foot. Just to give it time to heal. But everything is possible with tape, painkillers and a lot of determination.”

***Several motorsport bosses are not on-site this weekend, including Porsche Motorsport VP Thomas Laudenbach, who is in Berlin for the ABB FIA Formula E races, while BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos is also absent.

***The 6 Hours of Sao Paulo gets underway Sunday at 11:30 a.m. local time (10:30 a.m. EST) with live coverage in the U.S. on the newly re-branded HBO Max streaming platform. The full race airs live in the UK on TNT Sports 4 and Stan Sport in Australia. Three-time Le Mans class winner Darren Turner joins the WEC commentary team this weekend alongside Martin Haven and Graham Goodwin, with Bruce Jouanny in the pit lane.

***FIAWEC.tv is offering a ‘Mid-Season Pack’ for viewers to catch all four remaining races at a reduced price of €29.99 ($35 USD). Note that September’s Lone Star Le Mans will not be available for U.S. and English-speaking Canadian viewers on the WEC’s official streaming service.

Davey Euwema contributed to this report

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