Sao Paulo Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

***Hertz Team JOTA delivered Cadillac’s long-awaited first FIA World Endurance Championship victory, in a 1-2 finish for the British squad. The Sam Hignett and David Clark-owned operation becomes the first Hypercar team to have scored victories with two different manufacturers, following their win in last year’s 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps with a customer Porsche 963.

***Will Stevens took wins in both of those races, while Norman Nato scored his first WEC win since Circuit of The Americas 2020 (Rebellion Racing) after missing last year’s Spa race with JOTA due to his ABB FIA Formula E commitments in Berlin. Nato, however, prioritized his WEC drive this weekend over his Formula E duties, which ironically came in Berlin again.

***Nato said: “Last year I was in Berlin and I missed the win. Today was also Berlin and I’m here today.” The Frenchman now has earned four WEC class wins on four different continents, with Shanghai 2019 (overall), COTA 2020 (overall), Monza 2022 (LMP2) and Sao Paulo 2025 (overall).

***The No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R, which started on pole thanks to Alex Lynn’s Hyperpole-winning run, maintains the record of every 6 Hours of Sao Paulo winner having started the race from the front row, dating back to the inaugural race in 2012.

***JOTA team co-owner Sam Hignett revealed they had to change the strategy once Stevens received a drive-through penalty for a tire pressure infraction in the opening hour, which led to an early first full-service pit stop that included a four-tire change, that ultimately resulted in Lynn only getting fresh right-side Michelins for his first stint.

***Hignett told Sportscar365: “We didn’t know how long we had because having done the drive-through, the tires were under pressure again. So then we were back out on under-pressure tires. I don’t think there’s an answer to how long you’ve got until you get another penalty. The pressures come up, and it was so close on the pressure, we could get them to just get over. The rules are the rules. We had to completely reset so we put ourselves at a tire disadvantage.”

***Runner-up finisher Earl Bamber in the sister No. 38 Cadillac believed the No. 12 car’s penalty actually benefitted the eventual race winners in the long-run. “I think their penalty with the tire pressures actually kind of helped them with the strategy because that was the undercut,” the Kiwi told Sportscar365. “Our car was actually going to do that strategy, so we swapped. But to honest, the 12 car was a bit of a step above us all weekend.”

***Bamber, who along with Lynn had been with the Cadillac WEC program since its start in 2023, expressed his pleasure in the long-awaited result. “As a program for Cadillac to get a 1-2, I think it’s a very big and proud moment,” he said. “Also [I’m] just really happy for Sam [Hignett], DC [David Clark] as well, taking on this project and getting a win before the end of the season. I think everyone on the program is happy to get a win.”

***While Cadillac broke Ferrari’s four-race win streak, Dallara-chassied prototypes have remained undefeated in WEC competition so far this season, owing to the Italian constructor’s technical partnership with the Ferrari 499P, as well as being the chassis for the Cadillac LMDh car. Sunday’s win was also the first for the Dallara LMDh chassis in WEC.

***Cadillac’s win marked the first overall victory in an international sports car endurance race for an American manufacturer since the 2000 Nürburgring 1000 km, which was won by a Panoz LMP-1 Roadster-S driven by David Brabham and Jan Magnussen. The race served as part of the American Le Mans Series.

***Thanks to their victory, Lynn, Nato and Stevens have climbed to third place in the Hypercar drivers’ standings. They are now 37 points behind the No. 51 Ferrari 499P of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi, who remain in the lead of the championship despite not scoring points in Brazil.

***In the Hypercar manufacturers’ championship, Cadillac’s 1-2 has allowed the American brand to make a significant leap in the standings, jumping up from fourth to second place behind Ferrari. In the process, it also closed the gap to first place from 77 points to 55 as the Prancing Horse only scored four points. Porsche, meanwhile, moved past Toyota into third.

***Porsche LMDh factory director Urs Kuratle conceded that the Cadillacs were “simply better” than the pair of Penske Porsche 963s in the race, which finished third and fourth, despite a late-race charge by Julien Andlauer in the No. 5 entry, who nearly overtook the No. 38 Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais in the closing laps.

***Kuratle attributed the late-race surge due to the cooler conditions, which better suited the Porsches. “He was close,” said Kuratle. “I think it came down to six-tenths or something like this but then he got traffic and so-on. In the medium phase of the race, we struggled as you could see. But then as the temperature came down it came back to us.”

***The only issue for the two factory Porsches came with a five-second penalty added to the No. 6 entry due to a pit lane infraction when Kevin Estre was behind the wheel. “He simply took off too early,” said Kuratle. “At the end of the day we did not make many mistakes. P3 and P4 is okay.”

***Sheldon van der Linde made two late-race passes on the pair of Peugeot 9X8s to claim a fifth place finish in the No. 20 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 that he shared with Rene Rast and Marco Wittmann, bouncing back from a drive-through penalty for a Full Course Yellow infringement.

***WRT team principal Vincent Vosse told Sportscar365: “I would say ‘best of the rest’ again. We did a strong race. Avoiding the drive-through penalty would have been better but it would not have given us any extra place. P5 was probably the best of what we could do today.”

***The No. 20 BMW, meanwhile, lost nearly 20 laps early on when brake-related issues forced Kevin Magnussen into the garage. Vosse said they made repairs to the braking system but won’t know the root cause of the issue until being able to fully diagnose it once the parts return to Europe for further inspection.

***The No. 35 Alpine A424 also had its competitive run curtailed in the early stages when it suffered a battery failure. “None of the systems were working,” said Ferdinand Habsburg. “The braking felt bad, the engine was not well controlled, so I had to box. Then they were unsure about the state of the battery so until they were able to completely disconnect the battery from the vehicle, I wasn’t able to come out.”

***The car later rejoined the race but finished last overall, 42 laps off the race lead, with Habsburg explaining that that was mainly done to check for any potential “underlying issues” before the car is shipped to Austin for next month’s Lone Star Le Mans.

***With its 14th and 15th place finishes, Toyota Gazoo Racing did not score a single driver or manufacturer point for the first time in the history of the Hypercar class, dating back to its debut in 2021. The closest the Japanese manufacturer came to not scoring came in last year’s 6 Hours of Fuji when the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid finished tenth and the No. 7 car retired.

***TGR Europe technical director David Floury said: “As expected, Cadillac, Porsche, Peugeot. Okay, one BMW [finished] in between Porsche and Peugeot, but generally it’s been a clear hierarchy that was predictable from Monday. From our side we were never on the fight.”

***The No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R managed to extend its lead in the LMGT3 standings by finishing sixth in class. Ryan Hardwick, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz now sit 13 points ahead of the No. 21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, which finished outside of the top ten and thus did not register a points finish.

***Meanwhile, the No. 87 Lexus RC F GT3 climbed to fourth in the standings courtesy of its victory. Jose Maria Lopez becomes the first driver to have claimed victory in both of the WEC’s current categories (Hypercar and LMGT3).

***Razvan Umbrarescu, for his part, became the first Romanian driver in championship history to win a race.

***Rui Andrade credited TF Sport’s decision to not take tires during the penultimate pitstop for the No. 81 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R as a key factor in the team’s second-place finish in the LMGT3 class.

***Andrade told Sportscar365: “We didn’t take tires but we had a little bit of a fuel advantage because we had gone a bit deeper into our stints than the Iron Dames we were fighting against at that point. We knew track position is massively important here because it’s so hard to overtake. So we took that little advantage and made a shorter pit stop just to try and jump them, which worked. And then we were trying to see where we would end at the end of the race.”

***Two of the race’s four Full Course Yellows were bizarrely for kites that had fallen onto the track surface. The two others were for race-related debris, including the skid block from the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari that fell off after Nicklas Nielsen and the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette of Ben Keating came together.

***Both of the Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3s retired from the race, with the No. 88 machine dropping out in the third hour with a front damper issue, while the No. 77 machine suffered a problem with its exhaust with 1 hour and 15 minutes to go.

***The No. 61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was the only other retirement in the race.

***Formula 1 veteran Rubens Barrichello waved the Brazilian flag to signal the 36-car starting field off the grid. The father of Eduardo, who scored LMGT3 pole, was not on-site at Interlagos on Friday or Saturday as he took part in two rounds of the NASCAR Brasil Series, winning Race 1 at Autodromo Internacional de Cascavel.

***Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello, meanwhile, won the Goodyear Wingfoot Award after charging to a class podium finish in the late stages of the race.

***Barrichello praised Iron Dames driver Michelle Gatting’s fierce defensive effort as the No. 85 Porsche and No. 10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo battled for the final spot on the LMGT3 podium. “She did a very good job,” Barrichello told Sportscar365. “I think she does a good job regularly so I’m really happy to see her back on her feet as well. It was a good battle but at the end we’re all trying to win.”

***Santiago Chamorro, the President of General Motors South America, was on hand Sunday and met pre-race with the Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA drivers.

***United Autosports responded to Team WRT’s revised messaging on its No. 31 BMW M4 GT3 EVO from last weekend, which sported “We Are United” graphics on the rear quarter-panel, as part of the Belgian squad’s fundraising operation for less-privileged children in Brazil.

***United’s McLaren 720S GT3 Evo was added a tongue-in-cheek graphic “We Thought We Were United…?” while the team also posted a photo of former WRT drivers Darren Leung and Sean Gelael, who now drive for the Anglo-American team, looking puzzled.

***The WEC reported a three-day weekend attendance of 84,741 spectators, up from the 73,205 fans that turned out for the world championship’s highly anticipated return to Interlagos in 2024.

***With the fifth round of the season now in the books, the WEC enters its summer break before reconvening at Circuit of The Americas on Sept. 5-7 for the Lone Star Le Mans.

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