On the evening of the final of the European Football Championship, Toyota won the WEC 6-hour race in Sao Paulo! Four-time Le Mans winner Sebastien Buemi and his teammates Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa took an absolutely convincing victory in the fifth race of the World Endurance Championship season.
The Swiss final driver Buemi crossed the finish line after 236 laps with a clear lead of 1:08 minutes over the second-placed #6 Penske Porsche (Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor). Matt Campbell, Fred Makowiecki and Michael Christensen in the second Penske Porsche completed the podium in third place. The reigning world champion Toyota celebrated its second WEC victory of the season after Imola, and it was the first for the #8 crew.
Toyota wins on WEC return to Sao Paulo
In the WEC return to the Brazilian Formula 1 circuit after ten years, Buemi/Hartley/Hirakawa implemented the crucial tire management perfectly. The #8 Toyota, which started the race from second place, also benefited from a penalty and a technical problem with the sister car, which finished fourth after a late recovery. It was only close once, when the starting driver Brendon Hartley had to take a shortcut in turn 1 after a braking error in order to defend his temporary second place.
In the absence of safety car phases, there were no major surprises, with only three full-course yellow phases. After a turbulent start, things calmed down towards the middle of the race, but thanks to numerous midfield battles, it was never boring. Five of the 19 Hypercars that started finished the first WEC race after the 24 Hours of Le Mans on the lead lap.
Porsche trio extends lead in drivers’ championship
Estre/Lotterer/Vanthoor were able to extend their lead in the World Championship table with second place, because their closest rivals – the Le Mans winners Antonio Fuoco/Miguel Molina/Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari – could not get beyond sixth place due to a lack of pace.
The #6 Porsche had to make an unplanned pit stop due to a puncture following an early collision between Laurens Vanthoor and fellow brand driver Will Stevens (#12 Jota-Porsche). As a result, the title contender drove outside the pit stop sequence for a long time, but this was leveled out thanks to a full-course yellow phase and a pit stop at the right time.
“It didn’t start well with the collision,” said three-time Le Mans winner Lotterer. “But we didn’t give up and fought our way back to the right tires. Then came the Full Course Yellow, which put everything back in order. Our timing at the pit stop was perfect.”
The fact that the #6 Porsche ended up 7.182 seconds ahead of the Penske sister car with starting number #5 was somewhat surprising. The trio around start and finish driver Matt Campbell remained unscathed over the entire race distance and chased the victorious Toyota for a long time. After the disappointment at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the Porsche factory team was able to celebrate another double podium in the World Endurance Championship.
Ferrari plays no role in Sao Paulo despite update
There was not much to gain for Ferrari in Brazil. The #51 499 P (Pier Guidi, Giovinazzi, Calado), which started from P9, was in fourth place in the first stint, but had to settle for fifth place due to a drive-through penalty (FCY violation), among other things.
The sister car finished in sixth place, while the #83 Ferrari 499 P (Kubica, Shwartzman, Ye – 11th place) privately entered by AF Corse caused a lot of commotion: First, Robert Kubica was spun on lap 72 after a collision with Julien Andlauer in the #99 Proton Porsche (drive-through penalty), later AF Corse teammate Yifei Ye received a drive-through penalty for a collision with Robin Frijns’ #20 BMW.
After Sao Paulo, Ferrari brought the first update for the 499 P with it, consisting of a new brake cooling system, a revised underbody and small aero flicks under the headlights. With the ‘technical joker’, which was used earlier than originally planned, the Italians want to challenge their German rivals from Porsche for the lead in the World Championship.
Technical problems throw pole-setter Toyota back
Despite the late comeback, the Toyota GR010 Hybrid with starting number #7 (Conway, Kobayashi, De Vries), which started from pole position, will not be happy. Starting driver Mike Conway was initially very lucky to narrowly avoid a collision between two GT3 cars. A drive-through penalty after 63 laps for an FCY offence only cost the #7 Toyota the lead for a short time, until Conway took advantage of Hartley’s parallel slow stint to regain first place a short time later.
The runners-up in the 24 Hours of Le Mans suffered a technical knockout on lap 84, when a “fuel problem” required a repair in the pit area that cost almost three and a half minutes. This meant that the #7 Toyota, which had given the Japanese their first win of the season in Imola, was out of the running for a podium place.
Mick Schumacher scores first WEC points
Mick Schumacher finally scored his first World Championship points in the WEC with tenth place. The former Formula 1 driver had qualified the #36 Alpine (Schumacher, Lapierre, Vaxiviere) in eleventh place on the grid and took over the start on Sunday. Schumacher initially fell back three positions until he fought back and handed over the Alpine in ninth place on lap 79 after his double stint.
Schumacher was once again the fastest driver of the #36 crew and completed his personal best time of 1:26.837 minutes – more than a second faster than his teammates. The son of F1 legend Michael Schumacher returned to the Alpine for the final stint and defended the points. Mick completed a total of 116 laps, the most of his team.
The sister Alpine with starting number #35 (Habsburg, Milesi, Chatin) lost too much time after an early spin by Paul Loup Chatin to be able to fight for the top positions on a long-term basis – twelfth place at the finish. Nevertheless, the new LMDh Alpines were one of the positive surprises in Sao Paulo after their engine failures in Le Mans.
LMGT3 class: Manthey wins in drama surrounding women’s Lambo
In the new LMGT3 class, the German team Manthey continued its outstanding season and landed its fourth win in the fifth race. After the sister car’s Le Mans victory, this time it was the turn of the #92 (Malykhin, Sturm, Bachler). For the trio around the Austrian Porsche works driver Klaus Bachler, it was the second win of the season. The #92 crew now leads the drivers’ table alone.
The second Manthey Porsche with starting number #91 driven by Le Mans class winners Shahin/Schuring/Lietz caused chaos early on and ended up in twelfth place. Starting driver Yasser Shahin received a drive-through penalty for a collision with a Corvette and had to make a repair stop on lap 24 after bronze driver Shahin crashed into the back of a GT3 Ferrari.
Behind the #92 Manthey 911, the #27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 from Heart of Racing (James, Mancinelli, Riberas) and the #95 McLaren from United Autosports (Caygill, Pino, Sato) took second and third places on the podium.
The Iron Dames trio, who had secured their second pole position of the season in qualifying, experienced a bitter drama. The Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 of Sarah Bovy, Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting led in the first stint and confidently held on to second place in the second half of the race, heading for the podium.
Then came the nasty setback: during a pit stop 2 hours and 15 minutes before the end of the race, liters of water suddenly shot out of the Lambo, apparently because of a ruptured hose in the cooling system. This meant that the only women’s team in the WEC was out of the fight for the podium early.