Sao Paulo Post-Race Notebook

***Toyota scored its 47th victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship in the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, also becoming the first manufacturer to notch up a second win at the Interlagos circuit following its previous success back in 2014.

***Sebastien Buemi becomes the first driver to hit the milestone of 25 overall victories in the WEC. Brendon Hartley draws level for second in the all-time ranking with Mike Conway on 22 wins, while Ryo Hirakawa scored a fifth victory.

***Victory for Manthey PureRxcing in LMGT3 means that Porsche and Manthey have scored four of the five wins on offer so far this year. Klaus Bachler, Alex Malykhin and Joel Sturm all picked up their second wins, following on from their success in the season-opening Qatar 1812km.

***With second place, Porsche Penske Motorsport’s No. 6 crew of Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor have extended their championship lead to 19 points ahead of Ferrari trio Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen with three races to go. Toyota pair Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries are now 22 points adrift.

***Toyota, however, has now closed to within four points of Porsche in the Hypercar manufacturers’ standings. Ferrari has fallen to third and is 17 points behind.

***Toyota shuffled its usual driver rotation in the race-winning No. 8 car, which saw Sebastien Buemi qualify and Brendon Hartley start the race.

***Hartley said: “It was the first time taking the race start for a long time. I think Seb’s done every single one since I’ve been with the team. I did lock up in Turn 1 but I decided to go straight and didn’t want to have a mix-up anyway with Mike starting on the front row.”

***As well as Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa, the race engineer of the No. 8 Toyota, Ryan Dingle, was singled out for special praise by Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda in his post-race statement. Dingle had traveled to Brazil directly from Fuji Speedway in Japan, where he was working for the Toyoda-owned Rookie Racing team for a Super Formula test. “His presence has brought me and the WEC team even closer together,” said Toyoda.

***Conway said he experienced no physical issues as he made his return to WEC race action following the collarbone and rib injuries that forced him to sit out the 24 Hours of Le Mans, driving the No. 7 Toyota for the opening two hours of the race. “I was really happy with that,” he told Sportscar365. “That’s a box ticked and on to the next one.”

***A Ferrari spokesperson said that the No. 50 499P did not suffer any technical issues during the race despite the timing screens indicating that the car had stopped on track at around the two-hour mark. This was put down to a problem with the car’s transponder that caused it to temporarily drop down the provisional order.

***The No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R made an unscheduled stop in the third hour due to what ended up being an improperly mounted tire that dropped Alex Lynn down the running order and out of contention of a potential top-five finish. Lynn told Sportscar365: “The right-front tire didn’t go on properly so we had to box, gun it off, put it on again, gun it on. That was it. It’s heartbreaking.”

***By finishing seventh overall, the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche of Jenson Button, Oliver Rasmussen and Phil Hanson claimed its first FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams victory at Interlagos. It means only the No. 99 Proton Competition Porsche has yet to take a win so far this season of the four cars entered for the classification.

***However, JOTA co-owner Sam Hignett lamented the fact the No. 12 Porsche couldn’t earn a result in line with the car’s speed after Will Stevens was penalized for making contact with Vanthoor’s No. 6 Penske Porsche and Callum Ilott suffered an off that damaged the car in the closing stages. “The No. 12 was definitely the fastest Porsche so it should have been able to finish second behind the [No. 8] Toyota,” said Hignett.

***Manthey PureRxcing trio Bachler, Malykhin and Sturm are now 25 points clear of the field in the LMGT3 drivers’ standings, aided by the sister Manthey EMA Porsche of Richard Lietz, Yasser Shahin and Morris Schuring not scoring following Shahin’s early accident with the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Thomas Flohr. 

***The No. 85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 was forced out of the race after a fluid leak, caused by a fixture on a water pipe breaking. “Basically we lost a tube of the water pipe, most likely due to heat,” Rahel Frey told Sportscar365. “Very strange that it just happened at the pit stop. It was a piece that doesn’t even cost one euro but it was the first time we had seen the issue. It’s just a brutal part of motorsport.”

***Frey added: “Most likely we would not have beaten the [No. 92] Porsche, but second place was definitely possible. Scoring zero points again, it’s starting to get a bit annoying! It looks like it’s just not our year in WEC. In ELMS at least we had a turnaround [with victory in the 4 Hours of Imola], and we were hoping for a turnaround also in WEC.”

***BMW M Team WRT team principal Vincent Vosse voiced his unhappiness with the performance of the M4 GT3 relative to its competitors after Maxime Martin, Valentino Rossi and Ahmad Al Harthy finished fifth, two laps down on the winning Manthey Porsche. “If we only finish fifth with car No. 46 despite an error-free performance, then something is not right with the speed compared to our competitors,” said Vosse.

***Christian Ried’s one-off return to action for Proton Competition in LMGT3 means the German has recorded his 86th start in WEC competition. It means Buemi, who was due to surpass him this season following Ried’s retirement, will now not do so until next year’s season-opening Qatar 1812km, assuming he contests all races until then.

***The race featured only three retirements, matching the 6 Hours of Imola for having 33 classified finishers. Besides the Iron Dames Lamborghini, the other DNFs concerned the Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 Competizione, which dropped out with engine issues, and the No. 82 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R that lost drive, bringing out the race’s second of three Full Course Yellows.

***Toyota team director Rob Leupen has become the first paddock figure to get into trouble with the WEC stewards for making comments to the media regarding Balance of Performance, which is forbidden by the series’ sporting regulations.

***The offending article was originally posted on the Dutch and Italian editions of Motorsport.cоm. In it, Leupen criticized the ACO and FIA for having a BoP process that he said “is not transparent” and called for more “honesty” from the rule makers going forward. “These statements call into question the impartiality of the FIA, cast suspicion on its integrity and cause moral harm,” read the relevant stewards’ bulletin.

***The punishment was a €10,000 ($10,900 USD) fine suspended for the remainder of the season, providing no similar remarks are made by anyone linked with Toyota. The stewards’ bulletin said some leniency was afforded to Leupen as it was the first time the rule forbidding open discussion of BoP has been enforced, but warned that future offenders may not be so fortunate. 

***Goodyear’s Wingfoot Award for the fastest stint average in the LMGT3 class was won by Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin driver Alex Riberas. AF Corse Ferrari man Alessio Rovera leads the Wingfoot standings by a single point from WRT BMW driver Augusto Farfus, although neither driver has yet claimed an individual award so far this season.

***Race organizers claimed a three-day crowd of 73,205 fans, a significant increase on the figure of 55,000 given for the WEC’s previous visit to Brazil in 2014. Ex-Minardi Formula 1 racer Tarso Marques waved the national flag to signal the start of the race.

***The next round of the WEC season takes place at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas on Aug, 29-Sept. 1.

John Dagys contributed to this report