Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s Will Stevens, Norman Nato and Alex Lynn overcame an early penalty due to tire pressure issues to win the FIA World Endurance Championship Rolex 6 Hours of Sao Paulo Sunday (July 13). It is the first overall victory for Cadillac in the WEC.
“We knew that we had the pace in the car at the start. Obviously, the penalty made things more difficult, but the team did a super job,” Stevens said after the race. “It’s super special to be early in this program with Cadillac.”
The margin of victory was 57.016 seconds over teammates Earl Bamber, Sebastien Bourdais and Jenson Button. Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Julien Andlauer and Michael Christensen was third, followed by the No. 6 Porsche of Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor. BMW M Team WRT’s Rene Rast, Sheldon van der Linde and Marco Wittmann were fifth.
Stevens started from the overall pole, but came under immediate pressure from Porsche Penske Motorsport’s Julien Andlauer. Andlauer was able to make the pass at the Curva de Laranjinha on the first lap to take the lead away, then proceeded to open a gap.
There was trouble early for BMW M Team WRT as Kevin Magnussen suffered brake issues in the first 10 minutes. That forced the No. 15 BMW into the garage for repairs. The No. 15 would eventually return to the race and finish 17th, 20 laps down.
Andlauer drove out to a five-second lead but losing some of the advantage due to LMGT3 traffic. Stevens ended up dropping back further down the order. He eventually was given a drive-through penalty for his tire pressure being outside of the parameters. That effectively put the No. 12 Cadillac on an alternate pit strategy for the remainder of the race.
Andlauer ended up with a 12-second lead over Earl Bamber in the No. 38 Cadillac. Over the next hour and change, Bamber was able to slowly reduce the gap until he was right up on Andlauer.
That battle was interrupted by a round of stops where Andlauer handed over the No. 5 Porsche to Christensen. Quicker stops allowed the No. 12 Cadillac to retake the lead with Lynn at the wheel.
The race was fairly clean. The only interruptions in the first half of the event were due to debris removal.
Recent Balance of Performance changes significantly hindered the Ferrari 499Ps in Brazil. All three of them were down the order. The No. 50 ended up losing ground after he was hit by TF Sport’s Ben Keating and shed bodywork. That resulted in the entire rear wing and diffuser being replaced.
Ultimately, none of the 499Ps were a factor in Brazil. The best of the Ferraris was the customer AF Corse entry of Phil Hanson, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye, which finished eighth. The two factory Ferraris were 11th and 12th.
The race ended up being a battle between the two Cadillacs and the No. 5 Porsche for the duration. Stevens, Lynn and Nato knew that they were at a disadvantage to their teammates and to the Porsche. How do you overcome that? Try to open up a gap equal to a full pit stop over them.
They were seemingly able to do that by the beginning of the final hour, along with fuel saving. That allowed Nato to make his final stop early in the final hour within a couple of laps of the team car. From that point on, Nato was able to keep pace with his rivals to take the win.
In LMGT3, Racing Spirit of Leman’s Anthony McIntosh started from pole in his Aston Martin. The two Akkodis ASP Team Lexuses of Petru Umbrarescu and Arnold Robin gave chase.
After the Hypercars came through the class for the first time, Umbrarescu was able to make the move for the lead on McIntosh in the Senna S. That dropped McIntosh into the clutches of Stefano Gattuso.
Once out front, Umbrarescu managed to pull away to an 11-second lead. Following the first round of pit stops, McIntosh dropped back to sixth. Later contact with Team WRT’s Augusto Farfus resulted in a spin that dropped RSL out of the top 10.
As the race continued on, Jose Maria Lopez was able to open up a 25-second lead on Robin. It was 37 seconds back to Iron Lynx’s Martin Berry in third.
Lopez made a big mistake when he pitted in order to swap Clemens Schmid into the car. He was caught speeding on entry. Despite Schmid being forced to serve a drive-through penalty, he still ended up with a 12-second lead after the stops.
In the second half of the race, teammate Juichi Nakayama began to cut into Schmid’s lead. At the same time, Iron Dames’ Rahel Frey was running down both of the Lexuses in her Porsche.
However, the No. 87 Lexus was never seriously threatened. The complete lack of a safety car period in the race meant that the race never reset. The big lead that Lopez and Umbrarescu built early on held up for the win.
The margin of victory was 37.716 seconds over the Corvette of TF Sport’s Rui Andrade, Charlie Eastwood and Tom van Rompuy. RSL’s Eduardo Barrichello got past the Iron Dames’ Michelle Gatting in the final five minutes to claim the final spot on the podium for himself, McIntosh and Valentin Hasse-Clot. Gatting, Frey and Celia Martin were fourth, while Robin, Nakayama and Finn Gehrsitz were fifth.
FIA World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Sao Paulo Unofficial Results
Next up is the sole American round of the calendar, the Lone Star Le Mans. That race is scheduled for Sept. 7 at Circuit of the Americas and will air live on HBO Max.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the site's FREE e-mail newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the site's Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.