This 2024 WEC 6 Hours of Sao Paulo was compiled by regular endurance-racing correspondent Dr Nick van der Meulen.

The 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, the fifth round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship, took place at Interlagos. It is a short circuit in comparison with others on the WEC calendar. As a result, it was felt that 38 cars on the grid would result in machines tripping over each other. There were a few incidents in the race, but not more than at other circuits, still providing action aplenty. The Balance of Performance (BoP) figures changed somewhat following 24 Hours of Le Mans. Both Ferrari and Toyota the heaviest machines on the Hypercar grid. This did not stop Toyota, that was the benchmark from the offset.

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The Toyota squad locked out the front row in the Hyperpole session. The #7 Machine (Kobayashi/Conway/de Vries)  pipped the #8 (Hartley/Hirakawa/Buemi). Hartley tried a pass around the outside of Conway into Turn 1, but Conway was not having any of it and scampered away into the lead. The #7 machine ran comfortably in the lead until about one third distance, when the car picked up a fuel feed sensor problem. The car was forced to pit, losing over three minutes in the process. This left the #8 machine to dominate the rest of the race, taking victory by over a minute. Kobayashi drove hard in the final stint to finish fourth.

For the team, this was definitely our week. We had good pace in qualifying then both cars were really strong in the race and we managed the tyre degradation really well. Congratulations to car #8 for the victory; they drove a great race. Obviously, car #7 had the potential to win but unfortunately we had an issue and that cost us time in the pits. From then on it was a difficult situation for us but we tried our best to come back, and fourth was the best we could realistically achieve. Thanks to the team for all their hard work. We will analyse what happened on our car and come back even stronger for the next races.
Kamui Kobayashi, team principal and driver, car #7.

Challengers

Porsche had a decent race, with Penske Porsche #6 (L. Vanthoor/Estre/Lotterer) finishing a fine second, despite an incident with #12 JOTA Porsche, which led to contact on the approach to Turn 4 and a front right puncture. They finished ahead of stablemates #5(Christensen/Campbell/Makowiecki), who completed the podium.  JOTA #12 (Stevens/Illot/Nato) was in the wars, receiving a 30-second stop-and-go penalty for contact with #6. Later, Illot suffered damage to the rear of the car after spinning on cold tyres leaving the pits. Teammate #38 (Hanson/Button/Rasmussen) scored points for finishing seventh overall.

Le Mans Winners Penalised

Ferrari struggled with the extra weight added, after their win at Le Mans, and had a more subdued race. They still managed to score decent points, with #51 (Pier Guidi/Callado/Giovinazzi) finishing fifth and #50 (Nielsen/Fuoco/Molini) sixth. Peugeot and Alpine both performed well at Interlagos and both French marques were rewarded for their efforts. Peugeot #93 (Müller/Vergne/Jensen) scored points for eighth place, while Alpine #36 (Schumacher/Lapierre/Vaxiviere) took home the final point on offer. WRT BMW #15 (D. Vanthoor/Marciello/Wittmann) finished ninth overall, scoring points. On the other hand, #20 (van der Linde/Frijns/Rast), who qualified in the top ten for Hyperpole, only managed to finish 14th.

GT3s

LMGT3 championship leader Manthey Purerxcing Porsche #92 (Malykhin/Sturm/Bachler) and Iron Dames Lamborghini #85 (Bovy/Frey/Gatting) were the class of the field, running well ahead of the rest of the class in the early stages. Unfortunately, Iron Dames #85, who started in pole position, eventually were forced to retire due to a water leak, the Lamborghini literally steaming into their pit garage. This left #92 to win at a canter.

Heart of Racing Aston Martin #27 (James/Mancinelli/Riberas) finished an excellent second, ahead of the United Autosport McLaren pair #95 (Caygill/Pino/Sato) and #59 (Cottingham/Costa/Saucy), respectively. WRT BMW #46 (Martin/Rossi/Al Harthy) rounded off the top five finishers. Manthey Ema Porsche #91 (Shahin/Schuring/Lietz), co-leaders of the championship going into this event, had a nightmare race. They received a massive one -minute stop-and-go penalty for heavy contact with Ferrari #54 and almost taking out race leader (Toyota #7) in the process. They finished out of the points.

Championship Standings

The top ten finishers in each class score points. There are three points-scoring allocation forms, with different allocations for 6-hour, 8-10-hour and 24-hour events, respectively. Vanthoor/Estre/Lotterer maintain their Hypercar championship lead with 117 points, ahead of Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen with 98 points. Kobayashi/DeVries lie third with 95 points. Sheldon van der Linde has 10 points and lies 16th in the standings.

In the GT3LM class, the Manthey drivers Malykhin/Sturm/Bachler lead the championship with 100 points. Shahin/Schuring/Lietz lies second with 75 points, marginally ahead of Farfus/Leung/Gelael with 74 points. Kelvin van der Linde (Akkodis Lexus) lies 17th in the standings, with 16 points.

The sixth round of the World Endurance Championship takes place in the United States, with the Lone Star Le Mans on 1 September.