Toyota dominated at Interlagos on the way to a second World Endurance Championship victory of the season on Sunday.
The Japanese manufacturer’s #8 GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar shared by Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sebastien Buemi took the victory laurels in the Sao Paolo 6 Hours by a clear margin ahead of the two Penske-run factory Porsche 963 LMDhs.
Buemi crossed the line 1m08s ahead of the #6 Porsche driven by Laurens Vanthoor, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre, which in turn was 7s up on the sister car of Frederic Makowiecki, Michael Christensen and Matt Campbell.
Toyota led the way for the majority of the race and would almost certainly have finished 1-2 but for a rare technical problem for the sister #7 entry of Mike Conway, Nyck de Vries and Kamui Kobayashi.
Theirs was the faster of the two GR010s in the fifth round of the 2024 WEC and led the way through the opening double stint until an issue with a fuel pressure sensor when Conway handed over to de Vries early in the third hour cost the car three minutes.
Conway had built up a lead of 18s over Hartley when he had to take a drive-through penalty for a Full Course Yellow infringement, but was quickly back ahead of his team-mate and able to rebuild an advantage before he stopped.
De Vries and then Kobayashi were able to haul the car up the order, the Japanese bringing the car first into the top six and then up to fourth in the final hour.
The Japanese driver passed Alessandro Pier Guidi’s Ferrari 499P LMH with five minutes to go shortly after Jenson Button had stopped out of fourth place for a late drive-through following a tyre pressure infringement on the #38 Jota customer Porsche.
The Toyota was able to make the medium compound Michelin work on the aggressive Interlagos surface and in higher temperatures encountered during practice and qualifying.
Its two GR010s ran exclusively on the softer of the two tyres available in Sao Paulo, whereas Porsche and Ferrari also used the hard during the race.
Start action
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Both Porsche Penske Motorsport entries ran into minor delays over the course of the six hours.
The #6 entry sustained a puncture early on after Vanthoor had a coming together with Will Stevens in the #12 Jota Porsche, which resulted in the Briton receiving a 30s penalty.
The championship-leading PPM car looked set to finish behind the team’s other entry before #5 lost 20s to a change of the tail section after contact with an LMGT3 class entry when Christensen handed over to Campbell.
Kobayashi crossed the line 7s behind Campbell and just half that margin ahead of the Ferrari Pier Guidi co-drove with James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi.
The Italian car was delayed by a drive-through for a Full Course Yellow infringement early in the race, but the manufacturer never looked like repeating its Le Mans 24 Hours victory of last month.
The second of the AF Corse-run factory 499Ps, the Le Mans-winning entry shared by Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina, rounded out the top six on a day that it couldn’t match the sister car.
The best of the Jota cars, in which Button was joined by Phil Hanson and Oliver Rasmussen, ended up seventh.
Peugeot took eighth place with the #93 9X8 2024 shared by Nico Muller, Mikkel Jensen and Jean-Eric Vergne.
The revised version of the French manufacturer’s LMH produced its best showing so far, Muller making progress up the order on the hard tyre when temperatures were approaching their hottest.
BMW took ninth with the WRT-run M Hybrid V8 LMDh shared by Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Marco Wittmann, while Alpine snuck into the points with the #36 A424 LMDh shared by Mick Schumacher, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere.
Cadillac failed to follow up on Alex Lynn’s fourth place on the grid, the V-Series.R he shared with Earl Bamber ending up 13th after encountering brake issues.
#92 Manthey Purerxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3: Aliaksandr Malykhin, Joel Sturm, Klaus Bachler
Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images
Porsche took a fourth LMGT3 class victory in fives races and the Manthey PureRxing Porsche 911 GT3-R shared by Klaus Bachler, Joel Sturm and Alex Malykhin a second of the season.
They dominated proceedings on the way to a one-lap victory over the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 driven by Alex Riberas, Daniel Mancinelli and Ian James.
Malykhin trailed the Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 driven by class pole winner Sarah Bovy until midway through their opening double stint when he was able to move past a car that was clearly struggling on its tyres and then move into a clear lead.
The Iron Lynx-run Lambo was firmly established in second place in the middle stages of the race with Rahel Frey at the wheel when it lost coolant.
After 16 minutes in its box, the car briefly returned to the track before the Italian team retired the Huracan.
Riberas closed in on Bachler late in the penultimate hour, getting to within 4s before their final short pitstops.
The gap went out to 16s after the Aston took four Goodyear tyres and the Porsche only two before coming back down to the 4s after a late FCY.
Riberas was deemed, however, to have violated the FCY regulations and was handed a drive-through.
Third place went to the best of the two United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evos in which Marino Sato was joined by Nicolas Pino and Josh Caygill.
They ended up 48s in arrears of the Aston on the way to taking a first podium for the Anglo-American team on its return to the GT ranks in the WEC this year.
