Toyota double pole at the fifth race of the 2024 WEC season in Sao Paulo! Returning to the Brazilian Formula 1 circuit after ten years, the Japanese were unstoppable in qualifying.
Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid (Conway, Kobayashi, De Vries) gave his employer the first pole position of the year. The former F1 driver needed 1:23.140 minutes for his best lap in the Hyperpole session of the top 10 that had emerged from the previous qualifying.
Porsche chases Toyota duo in qualifying in Sao Paulo
Matt Campbell came closest to the two Toyotas in the #5 Penske Porsche (Campbell, Christensen, Makowiecki). The Australian missed his third pole position of the season by 0.191 seconds. Campbell nevertheless came back strongly after an early spin during his out lap and was the fastest of the four Porsches that had qualified for the Hyperpole in 1:23.331 minutes.
Porsche title contender and Ferrari rival in row three
Behind fifth-placed Cadillac driver Alex Lynn, Kevin Estre took fifth place on the grid with his #6 Porsche 963 (Estre, Lotterer, Laurens Vanthoor). A promising starting position for the trio that leads the World Championship. Their biggest title rivals – the newly crowned Le Mans winners Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen in the #50 Ferrari 499 P – followed in sixth place.
The two Jota customer Porsches share the fourth row of the grid: In the team-internal duel between the ex-F1 drivers, Will Stevens in the #12 (Stevens, Ilott, Nato) narrowly beat Jenson Button and his #38 Porsche (Rasmussen, Hanson, Button). P9 went to the #51 Ferrari (Pier Guidi, Giovinazzi, Calado) ahead of the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 (Dries Vanthoor, Marciello, Wittmann), which Sheldon van der Linde pushed into tenth place. Dries Vanthoor in the sister BMW (Vanthoor, Marciello, Wittmann) missed the Hyperpole and finished P14.
Mick Schumacher narrowly misses Hyperpole
Schumacher had previously set his personal best time of 1:23.927 minutes and was unable to fight back in the final minutes. He was still four hundredths of a second faster than Frenchman Charles Milesi, who started 13th in the #35 sister Alpine (Habsburg, Milesi, Chatin).
Qualifying was once again disappointing for the two Peugeot 9X8s, which had to settle for 16th (Vandoorne, Di Resta, Duval) and 17th (Vergne, Jensen, Nico Müller) under the watchful eye of brand CEO Linda Jackson. The last positions are shared by the #63 Lamborghini SC63 (Bortolotti, Kvyat, Mortara) and the Isotta Fraschini.
LMGT3 qualifying: Women’s Lambo on pole – Rossi-BMW misses Hyperpole
The Iron Dames have struck again! Sarah Bovy gave the women’s trio in the #85 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 (Bovy, Frey, Gatting) their second pole of the season after Spa. The fast bronze driver from Belgium needed 1:34.413 minutes for her fastest lap. This put her 0.391 seconds ahead of second-placed Alexander Malykhin in the #92 Manthey Porsche.
Nevertheless, a strong performance from the Porsche driver, who was travelling with 20 kilos of success ballast on board. The second The Manthey 911 with the #91 (Shahin, Schuring, Lietz) drove to fifth place on the grid in the hands of Yasser Shahin. The Le Mans class winners even had to pack 45 kilos of weight for success. The two Manthey crews are at the top of the World Championship table.
The two McLaren 720 S GT3s from United Autosport squeezed in between the two Porsches in positions three (Caygill, Pino, Sato) and four (Cottingham, Costa, Saucy). Darren Leung led the #31 BMW M4 GT3 from WRT (Leung, Gelael, Farfus) to sixth place on the grid.
The second BMW M4 GT3 from WRT, the #46 (Al-Harthy, Rossi, Martin) driven by motorsport superstar Valentino Rossi, missed the Hyperpole lap and ended up in twelfth place. “A disappointing qualifying,” said bronze driver Ahmad Al-Harthy. “That was my fastest lap here this weekend, but it wasn’t enough.”
At the start of the ten-minute Hyperpole lap, Thomas Flohr spun in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari and slightly hit the track barrier with the front. Race control then showed red flags because of the wrecked Ferrari, which meant that qualifying ended prematurely for Flohr – tenth place on the starting grid.
According to the regulations, the bronze drivers in the LMGT3 cars must compete in qualifying and the Hyperpole. The silver and platinum drivers only get to compete in the race.