A second FIA World Endurance Championship victory in three races for Team WRT’s BMW M Hybrid V8 squad, secured by the No. 15 entry in the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, proved especially meaningful for its drivers. It marked Kevin Magnussen’s and Raffaele Marciello’s first WEC success, while it was Dries Vanthoor’s inaugural win at the highest level. The Belgian star, who had previously tasted victory in both the LMP2 and GTE-Am categories, becomes the ninth driver to win in three different WEC classes.
Nevertheless, the triumph did not propel BMW back to the summit of the manufacturers’ standings. Toyota continues to lead despite failing to score in Sao Paulo, where the No. 7 TR010 Hybrid accrued multiple penalties and the No. 8 car shed 12 laps after a tie-rod damage suffered in a collision with Andre Lotterer’s Genesis GMR-001.
The Japanese manufacturer’s advantage sits at five points, yet it could have been reduced further had the No. 20 BMW not incurred a five-second penalty for a collision between Robin Frijns and the No. 50 Ferrari 499P near the Senna Esses late in the race. The sanction dropped the 20 car from sixth to eighth in the final results.
The title battle among drivers narrows further as Frijns and Rene Rast find themselves level at the top, alongside the No. 7 Toyota crew of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries. Rast conceded that finishing higher would have been preferable, especially since the sister car won, and he noted that the No. 20’s chances were hampered by Sheldon van der Linde’s grip shortfall in qualifying, which left the field with 16th place among 17 Hypercars.
Rast told Sportscar365: “We had a very different strategy to make the first stint very long, 45 laps, which was two or three laps longer than the other guys and shortened the pit stop to try and get some clean air, which unfortunately didn’t work. We got caught up behind the Peugeot and lost a couple of seconds there.”
Genesis Magma Racing’s Dani Juncadella believed the GMR-001 possessed the pace to collect points at Interlagos, but he was spun by Thomas Flohr’s AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo and subsequently penalised for a full-course yellow infringement. That sequence dropped the No. 19 Genesis to 13th, two places ahead of the sister No. 17 machine.
Juncadella told Sportscar365: “Considering the penalty, the contact from Flohr, I got hit by the Peugeots twice, so we had quite a rough race with contact, and the car was still driving straight and driving well.”
A striking feature of the Brazilian round was the absence of retirements, with all 35 entrants reaching the checkered flag, despite multiple incidents of contact on the mid- and high-speed sections. It marked the first time all cars had been classified as finishers since Fuji in 2023, and there was only a single Full Course Yellow period to recover debris, with no safety cars despite the tight and winding nature of Interlagos.
While Cadillac fell short of an outright victory, GM could still celebrate additional triumph for the TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R squad. The No. 34 entry, driven by Salih Yoluc, Peter Dempsey and Charlie Eastwood, secured back-to-back Corvette victories in the LMGT3 class. It marked the fourth time a TF-run car had prevailed from as far back as tenth on the starting grid.
The win also elevated Corvette to second place on the all-time manufacturer list in the LMGT3 era, behind only Porsche.
The sister No. 33 Corvette continued to lead the drivers’ standings despite finishing eighth. With Nicky Catsburg missing the event due to an IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship clash and Ben Keating sidelined for the opening two rounds while recovering from an elbow injury, Jonny Edgar sits alone atop the standings. Behind Catsburg and Keating, the second-placed crew is the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo, composed of Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Yasser Shahin, 27 points adrift of Edgar.
Catsburg’s stand-in Nico Varrone was spun late in the race by the No. 61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo driven by Maxime Martin and lost time when the door refused to shut during a mid-race pit stop. Yet Varrone expressed satisfaction with his return to competition, noting the car carried the maximum success penalty weight.
It looked as though the Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 EVOs might challenge the Corvette leaders, particularly when the No. 77 opted for a strategy of one fewer stop. However, Seb Priaulx dropped from second to sixth in the closing stages and received a penalty for exceeding track limits.
Priaulx’s teammate Ben Tuck collected the Goodyear Wingfoot Award after leading a WEC race for the first time, and he told Sportscar365: “We had to energy-save a little and preserve the tires for that extra-long final stint, and it still wasn’t enough. We were hoping for rain as well because, from COTA last year, we know the car performs well in wet or damp conditions on slicks.”
Asked whether missing the podium was frustrating, Tuck replied: “I wouldn’t call it frustrating; it actually motivates me even more for the next race.”
One beneficiary of the Mustang’s drop down the order was the No. 92 Porsche, with Lietz taking third after a frantic battle that he described as almost “a bit too much.” He told Sportscar365: “If we have a good race, we want a nice steak. Mid-race we were thinking, ‘Okay, maybe no steak.’ But now we’ll go for a steak.”
The Sao Paulo round drew a record crowd of 84,960 spectators, a slight rise on the 84,741 that attended last year.
However, one notable absence at Interlagos was the renowned sports-car journalist and Sportscar365 contributor Gary Watkins, who had been the sole reporter to attend every WEC race since the series began in 2012, a streak that has now ended.
The World Endurance Championship now heads into a summer break, with the second half of the season due to start at the Circuit of the Americas for the Lone Star Le Mans event on September 4-6.
