Toyota Gazoo Racing’s No. 8 GR010 HYBRID of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sebastien Buemi became the fifth car in five rounds to win an FIA WEC race this season in Sao Paulo.
The trio took a commanding victory, Toyota’s second of the campaign, in a highly entertaining six-hour encounter at Interlagos which saw title contenders in both categories hit trouble.
The result for the No. 8 came after the sister car was forced to relinquish the lead while the pair were running in formation, first and second, in the second hour.
Mike Conway, on his return from injury, took the start in the No. 7 and was in firm control early, holding station from pole before the car dropped off the lead lap at its second pit stop with a fuel pressure monitor problem.
That made it an extremely tough afternoon for title challengers Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries, who pushed hard to regain lost ground and eventually fought their way back to fourth, topped off by a late penalty for JOTA and a last-gasp lunge at Turn 1 from Kamui Kobayashi in the final hour.
As the No. 7 fought its way back through the field, the No. 8 gradually pulled away from the chasing pack. The winning GR010 had the edge on pace and tire wear during the race, creating a winning margin of over a minute when Buemi crossed the line after 236 laps of the technical, abrasive, anti-clockwise circuit.
“I’m really proud that we finally won our first race of the season,” said Buemi after the race. “Car No. 7 was extremely fast today and it’s a shame for them not to score more points, but now we have a win.
“The manufacturers’ championship is really important for us and we have a great chance to help fight for that. But it’s going to be difficult because the No. 6 Porsche has been consistent.
“We will try to help the No. 7 as much as we can from now and help them fight for the championship.”
The No. 7 wasn’t the only title challenger in Hypercar to hit trouble. The No. 6 Penske Porsche — which held a nine-point lead in the championship standings — dropped crucial time early after contact with the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche during the first hour as Laurens Vanthoor and Will Stevens battled for sixth.
The contact would see the No. 6 suffer a front-right puncture that forced the Belgian in for an unscheduled stop, dropping him down the order and at the time, off the lead lap. The pace was strong for the No. 6, though, and it recovered masterfully.
A superb drive from Andre Lotterer, Vanthoor and Kevin Estre, who ran off-sequence for almost the entire race, saw them climb the standings to second. As a result, the No. 6 trio have extended their lead in the championship to 19 points with three races to go.
“We impressed ourselves because when you have an incident like that in a competitive field you think it’s going to be a tough day and hard to recover,” Lotterer told RACER. “We didn’t give up, Laurens fought back immediately, then I got in and took us to P4, a full course yellow helped us and then Kevin got in and it all went smooth. It’s really good to score points like this because we aimed to hold the lead in the standings.”
Meanwhile, the aforementioned No. 12 JOTA Porsche finished 18th after multiple dramas, all but ending the team’s slim title chances. Stevens was found to be at fault for the contact with the No. 6 and was penalized, before Callum Ilott had an off into the barriers at Turn 4 in the final hour, ripping the rear wing off the car.
The final podium place was taken by the No. 5 sister Penske Porsche, which looked poised to finish second had it not lost time to a rear-clip change at a stop in the fifth hour. Michael Christensen revealed to RACER that the car took damage when it was rear-ended by a BMW.
Nevertheless, Matt Campbell, Fred Makowiecki and Michael Christensen will be satisfied with their third podium of the season, after retiring from the race at Spa and finishing outside the top three at Le Mans.
This was a race dictated — as predicted — by tire strategy. There was no rain, the temperature was higher than at any point during practice and qualifying and, as a result, the teams were forced to experiment on tire choice throughout.
As the field ventured down different avenues, it became a tricky race to read. Each round of stops saw teams switch between the Michelin Mediums and Hards or try combinations of both as the track evolved. It meant the running order was constantly shuffling as multi-car battles raged on, particularly towards the end of stints when grip began to fade fast for certain cars.
Off the podium, the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari bounced back nicely after being handed a drive-through for a full course yellow infringement in the second hour. It finished fifth behind the hard-charging No. 7 Toyota, but ahead of the Le Mans-winning No. 50 sister car which struggled for pace after an early off.
During what was an eventful final hour, the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche looked on course to finish fourth, but the car dropped to seventh after the team was handed a stop-go penalty for an FCY infringement with 10m remaining, adding to the British team’s disappointing day.
Further down the order in Hypercar, there were plenty of other performances to note. The No. 93 Peugeot scored valuable points in eighth in what was a stronger showing in the race for the French brand than the team expected after lacking pace in qualifying.
According to driver Mikkel Jensen, the hotter temperatures played into the team’s hands. Its drivers were able to switch on the hard tires effectively during the race and fight for positions in and around the top five.
Through the middle portion of the race Alpine also found itself in the hunt for strong points-paying positions, though the best-placed A424 ended up finishing 10th.
It was another tough outing for BMW, its M Hybrid V8s coming home ninth and 14th
Cadillac Racing’s V-Series.R suffered through the race too. Alex Lynn and Earl Bamber — who started the race fourth — would finish outside the points in 13th, after an issue related to a “grinding noise” from the brakes that reared its ugly head in the first half of the race.
“We unfortunately had a problem on the pit stop where we had to come back in and reseat the right-front wheel and that took us out of contention for a good result today,” Lynn said. “That’s the margins in WEC. Any small error will cost you dearly, and unfortunately, that was us today.”
LMGT3 also saw a single team dominate. Pure Rxcing’s Porsche 911 LMGT3 R 992 crossed the line a long way up the road from the Heart of Racing Aston Martin.
Once Alex Malykhin snatched the lead from Sarah Bovy in the pole-sitting Iron Dames Lamborghini in the second hour, the victory felt inevitable. Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler managed the gap well and scored the Lithuanian-flagged outfit its second win of the season in fine style.
Toward the end of the race, the gap to second did close to around 10s as Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas found pace for Heart of Racing, but an FCY infringement penalty in the final minutes for the Vantage saw the gap swell to 34s by the end. Thankfully for the U.S.-flagged team, the gap to third was big enough to see them hold station and cross the line ahead of the No. 95 United Autosports McLaren.
With third- and fourth-place finishes for the two McLaren GT3 Evos, today’s race marked another step forward for United and its globetrotting effort. The No. 59 narrowly missed out on a podium but did manage to keep the No. 46 WRT BMW at arm’s length at the end.
In championship terms, this result sees the No. 92 trio claim the outright lead by 25 points after being tied with the No. 91 sister Manthey EMA Porsche post-Le Mans.
“It was the hardest race of the season for us,” Bachler said. “We gave everything and I am really proud that we lead the championship again after our technical issue during Le Mans. With three races to go, we are back in the lead and we will do everything to hold it until the last weekend.”
In championship terms, the result sees the No. 92 trio claim the outright lead after they sat tied on points with the sister No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche after Le Mans.
On the other side of the Manthey Porsche garage, it was a total disaster for the No. 91 crew. In the first hour, Yasser Shahin was handed a drive-through penalty for contact at Turn 4 with the No. 81 TF Sport Corvette, then suffered heavy contact with the No. 54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari which forced the car into the garage.
The clash occurred at Turn 1, Shahin crunching into the rear of Thomas Flohr’s 296 in avoidance as they passed through the braking zone. The contact was front-right to rear-left, puncturing tires on both cars.
The Porsche ended up dropping multiple laps down as a consequence and would finish 12th, outside the points in what was a crushing blow for Shahin, Morris Shuring and Richard Lietz.
It was a bad day too for the No. 31 WRT BMW, which remains the only car other than a Manthey-operated Porsche 911 to win in LMGT3 this season. The crew led by local hero Augusto Farfus lost ground in the title race today after failing to recover from a drive-through penalty in the second hour. They came home multiple laps down in 10th.
The pole-sitting Iron Dames team, meanwhile, also suffered a bout of rotten luck, adding to its growing list of woes this season. The No. 85 Huracan suffered a major fluid leak during its fourth stop while running second before being retired.
It was yet another heartbreaking afternoon for the all-female crewed car, which started from pole for the second time this season, led for much of the opening two hours during Sarah Bovy’s stint and looked set for a podium finish before hitting trouble.
Next up on the calendar is Lone Star Le Mans at Circuit of The Americas on Sept. 1.