WRT BMW Defeats Ferrari, Cadillac For Second Win

Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor scored WRT BMW’s second win of the FIA World Endurance Championship season after triumphing in the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo as the Hertz Team JOTA Cadillacs that locked out the front row suffered multiple woes.

The No. 15 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 crossed the line 2.254 seconds ahead of the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado, which gave the Italian manufacturer an unexpected first Interlagos podium.

The best of the Cadillac V-Series.Rs, the No. 12 machine of Will Stevens and Norman Nato, had to make do with third.

Stevens maintained the lead from pole at the start over the sister No. 38 machine while the driver on a charge was Magnussen in the No. 15 BMW.

He instantly dispatched the No. 36 Alpine A424 of Frederic Makowiecki, which had started third, at the first corner and then was able to split the two Cadillacs later in the first hour with a robust move at Ferradura when Earl Bamber was slightly held up in traffic.

But the race then began to unravel for the JOTA squad as both Caddys endured long first stops.

First to suffer was the No. 38 crew as Bamber locked up heading into his pit box and caused the mechanics to readjust their positions.

Then Stevens suffered a wheel nut failure on the No. 12 car that also cost him almost 10 seconds, which was enough to vault the BMW into the lead.

Magnussen and then Marciello continued to lead during the middle stages of the race, outside of brief spells where the No. 35 Alpine A424 that pitted early in the first hour and ran off-strategy to the rest of the field held the advantage.

The Cadillacs continued to struggle with Stevens penalized for hitting the No. 87 Lexus RC F GT3 while Nato had a brief spin at Turn 7 on his out-lap when battling with the No. 83 AF Corse satellite Ferrari.

These delays, combined with the V-Series.Rs getting stuck in traffic, opened the door to the No. 51 factory Ferrari to steadily move into contention.

Calado moved into the lead in the fifth hour during the stops despite nosing into the barriers exiting the pit lane and picking up part of advertising sticker.

Calado defied the damage to continue to lead but Vanthoor in the BMW jumped him in the final round of stops and pulled away to clinch the German manufacturer’s second win of the season.

There was a nervy conclusion to the race for BMW, however, as the threat of rain loomed with the ever descending cloud and darkening skies.

But Vanthoor was able to hold on and keep Calado at arm’s length, while the Cadillacs had to settle for third and fourth.

They did swap places with 15 minutes to go to see if Jack Aitken in the No. 38 could fare any better in catching the Ferrari, but this was to no avail and they returned to their original order with a couple of laps remaining.

There was late drama in the battle to be best of the rest behind as Robin Frijns in the No. 20 BMW attempted to pass Antonio Fuoco in the No. 50 Ferrari.

Frijns tried a move into the Senna Esses but succeeded only in spinning the Ferrari around and the No. 83 satellite AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica was able to pounce and pass them both to finish fifth in the car he shared with Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson.

The BMW of Frijns, Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde ended up sixth, but was subsequently given a five-second penalty post-race for the incident, which prevented the crew retaking the points lead as it fell to eighth.

The No. 50 Ferrari slipped to eighth at the flag behind the No. 007 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie, before both were promoted a place by the BMW’s penalty.

The top-ten was then completed by the No. 009 Aston Martin and the No. 35 Alpine, the French manufacturer’s offset strategy failing to work after also suffering a late slow puncture.

It was another miserable Interlagos event for Toyota with the No. 7 TR010 Hybrid finishing 12th after several penalties while the No. 8 machine lost 12 laps in the pits for repairs to a broken toe rod after contact from the No. 17 Genesis GMR-001 of Andre Lotterer.

TF Sport Corvette Takes Another Win in LMGT3

TF Sport scored a second consecutive win in the LMGT3 ranks after following up success in the 24 Hours of Le Mans by taking honors in Brazil, this time with the No. 34 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Salih Yoluc, Peter Dempsey and Charlie Eastwood.

They finished up 8.108 seconds ahead of the No. 69 WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Anthony McIntosh, Parker Thompson and Dan Harper.

The Corvette squad adopted an alternate strategy to the rest of the field with the FIA Silver-graded Yoluc starting before handing to Bronze Dempsey, while everyone else began with their Bronze.

The early stages of the race were led by the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 but this was pounced upon by both of the Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 EVOs in the first hour.

The No. 88 machine of Stefano Gattuso headed the sister No. 77 car at this stage but the crews diverged on strategy with Gattuso exiting his car as soon as the minimum drive time was completed, while Eric Powell stayed aboard the sister car.

This appeared to be the slightly better strategy, but the No. 34 Corvette had already been able to move into the lead towards the end of the third hour and Eastwood was able to guide it to the flag.

Seb Priaulx in the No. 77 Mustang attempted to make one fewer stop and hang on to second but was struggling on used tires by the end and was passed by Harper in the No. 69 BMW with around 20 minutes to go.

Priaulx then tumbled behind the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Richard Lietz and the sister Mustang of Logan Sargeant, only for a drive-through track-limits penalty to then compound Priaulx’s misery.

The Porsche was under pressure from Sargeant in the final laps but Lietz was able to clinch a third third-placed finish of the season alongside Ricardo Pera and Yasser Shahin.

The sister No. 91 car jumped Sargeant in the closing minutes to snare fourth with Proton having to make do with just a fifth place from a race that promised so much more.

The points-leading No. 33 Corvette of Ben Keating, guesting Nico Varrone and Jonny Edgar finished eighth despite late contact from the No. 61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maxime Martin and carrying maximum success ballast for winning last time out at Le Mans.

RESULTS: 6 Hours of Sao Paulo