Sao Paulo Post-Race Notebook

***A second FIA World Endurance Championship win in three races for the Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 squad was particularly notable for the drivers of the No. 15 car that triumphed in the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo. It marked the first WEC victories for both Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello, while it was Dries Vanthoor’s first in the top class. The Belgian had previously been successful in both the LMP2 and GTE-Am divisions and therefore becomes the ninth driver to have won in three different WEC classes.

***However, the triumph was not quite enough for BMW to return to the top of the manufacturers’ standings. Toyota continues to lead the way despite not scoring in Sao Paulo after the No. 7 TR010 Hybrid picked up multiple penalties and the No. 8 machine lost 12 laps when it suffered tie rod damage in a hit from Andre Lotterer’s Genesis GMR-001.

***The Japanese manufacturer’s advantage now stands at five points but it could have been further reduced had the No. 20 BMW not picked up a five-second penalty for Robin Frijns colliding with the No. 50 Ferrari 499P at the Senna Esses late in the race. The sanction demoted it from sixth to eighth in the final result.

***The drivers’ title fight is even closer as Frijns and Rene Rast are now tied at the top with the No. 7 Toyota crew of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries. Rast admitted it was disappointing to have not finished higher while the sister car triumphed, the No. 20’s chances having been severely hampered by Sheldon van der Linde suffering from a lack of grip in qualifying to line up 16th of the 17 Hypercars.

***Rast told Sportscar365: “We had a very different strategy to make the first stint very long, 45 laps, which was two or three laps longer than the other guys and shortened the pit stop to try and get some clean air, which unfortunately didn’t work. We got caught up behind the Peugeot and lost a couple of seconds there.”

***Genesis Magma Racing driver Dani Juncadella believed the GMR-001 had the pace to score points at Interlagos but he was sent spinning by Thomas Flohr’s AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo and picked up a penalty for a full-course yellow infringement. That consigned the No. 19 Genesis to 13th, two spots ahead of the sister No. 17 machine.

***Juncadella told Sportscar365: “Considering the penalty, the contact from Flohr, I got hit by the Peugeots twice, so we had quite a rough race with contact, and the car was still driving straight and driving well.”

***A remarkable feature of the Brazilian race was the lack of retirements as all 35 cars made it to the checkered flag, despite several instances of drivers colliding during lappery. It was the first time all cars had been classified as finishing since the 2023 Fuji round and there was also just one Full Course Yellow period to retrieve debris and no safety cars despite the tight and twisty layout of the Interlagos track.

***While GM missed out on outright victory with the Cadillac brand, it was able to celebrate further success for the TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R squad. The No. 34 car of Salih Yoluc, Peter Dempsey and Charlie Eastwood ensured it was back to back Corvette victories in the LMGT3 division. It represented the fourth time a TF-run car had triumphed despite starting tenth or lower on a WEC grid.

***The win was also a fourth for Corvette in the LMGT3 era and that takes it to second place on the list of most successes for a manufacturer, behind only Porsche.

***The sister No. 33 Corvette also continues to lead the drivers’ standings despite only finishing eighth. But, with Nicky Catsburg absent due to an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship clash and Ben Keating missing the opening two events while recovering from a elbow injury, it is Jonny Edgar that sits alone at the top of the standings. Behind Catsburg and Keating, the next highest-placed crew is the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Yasser Shahin, 27 points adrift of Edgar.

***Catsburg’s stand-in Nico Varrone was spun around late in the race by the No. 61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maxime Martin and lost time when the door refused to shut in a mid-race pit stop. But Varrone said he was still satisfied with the result on his sports car return as the car had to contend with the maximum success penalty weight.

***It had looked like the Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 EVOs could take the fight to the lead Corvette, especially when the No. 77 machine adopted an alternate strategy of attempting to make one fewer stop than the rest. However, Seb Priaulx fell back from second to sixth in the final minutes before being given a penalty for exceeding track limits.

***Priaulx’s teammate Ben Tuck picked up the Goodyear Wingfoot Award having led a WEC race for the first time and told Sportscar365: “We had to energy save a little bit and save the tires for that extra long stint at the end and it just wasn’t enough. We were praying for rain as well because we know from COTA last year that the car’s very good in the wet, especially in damp conditions on slicks.”

***When asked if it was frustrating to miss out on a podium, Tuck replied: “I wouldn’t say frustrating, to be honest it gives me even more motivation for the next race.”

***One of the cars to profit from the Mustang’s fall down the order was the No. 92 Porsche. It was a hectic conclusion to the race for Lietz, who took the flag in third and described the intense battling as almost a “bit too much.” He told Sportscar365: “We said if we have a good race, we go for a nice steak. In the middle of the race we were like, ‘OK, maybe no steak.’ But now we will go for a steak!”

***The Brazilian round of the WEC attracted a record crowd of 84,960 spectators, which represented a slight increase on the 84,741 that attended last year.

***However, one person not at Interlagos was renowned sports car racing journalist and Sportscar365 contributor Gary Watkins. He had been the only reporter to attend every WEC race since the series launched in 2012 but that streak has now come to an end.

***The WEC now enters its summer break with the second half of the season due to begin at the Circuit Of The Americas with the Lone Star Le Mans event on Sept. 4-6.