Kobayashi’s pole lap
Kamui Kobayashi delivered an outstanding flying lap to take pole today, scoring Toyota its second WEC pole at Interlagos and its first since the inaugural FIA WEC season in 2012.
You can watch his lap, in full, with the video below:
Sarah Bovy’s pole lap in LMGT3 is also available to watch, along with the highlights package.
Managing tyres the key for drivers in both classes
With the Interlagos circuit so aggressive on tyres, particularly on each car’s right side rubber, the most pressing topic following practice and qualifying concerns tyre management and strategy for tomorrow’s race.
In Hypercar, where the Medium and Hard compound Michelins are available, choosing between them throughout the race will be difficult.
During Qualifying the Medium was the tyre of choice, but in the race, if the temperature increases (as many forecasts suggest) to the mid-20s (celsius), then the Hard compound may become the preferred option.
“You will see a big difference in tyre choice tomorrow from all the different manufacturers,” Porsche’s Matt Campbell told DSC. “There should be different conditions tomorrow compared to the rest of the week, so there will be different strategies. Some teams may decide to change the right side, left side or rears only at certain stops.
“We have our plan in place, I don’t know if it’s the right plan but it’s the best option we have. It will be extremely difficult with the degradation in traffic. Unfortunately, we don’t get extra tyres here like GTs, so there’s a high chance we may need to double-stint the rights.
“The race will force you to drive smart tomorrow. This might be the lowest grip I’ve ever experienced at a circuit in my career,” he continued. “The circuit surface is really torn up in places. We’re all going to struggle at the end of each stint.”
It’s a similar story in LMGT3, though only one spec of Goodyear – the ‘Medium’ – is available.
With the teams benefitting from an additional set of F1 Eagle Super Sports for this race, they can change the right-side tyres at each stop. As a result, it’s the left-side tyres, which don’t wear at the same rate on this circuit, that teams are focusing on.
According to United Autosports’ James Cottingham, the teams will use a mixture of single and double stints as triple stinting is unlikely to be possible.
“I don’t think we will see any triple stinting. It’s a struggle to get the cars to even do a double, so we need to double as often as possible and see how we get on,” he said.”
Peugeot struggles “very frustrating” for Vergne
It’s been another tough week so far for Peugeot, which continues to struggle to get to grips with its 2024-spec challenger.
Neither 9X8 made it to Hyperpole. Instead, they will start from 16th and 17th on the grid, after completing laps 1.2 and 1.3 seconds off the pole time.
#93 driver Jean-Eric Vergne didn’t mince his words when asked by DSC to assess the team’s performance this weekend and lay out his expectations for the race.
“We don’t have performance,” he said. “We did the best we could. Set-up wise, plan wise, we are doing our best but we are just slow. We are losing time everywhere.
“I have struggled all weekend with understeer and the fronts not working well. It’s not getting better. It’s very frustrating and I don’t know really what to say. There’s no reason behind our extremely poor performance. We just aren’t quick enough.
“Our performance has nothing to do with São Paulo. Le Mans wasn’t great, Spa wasn’t great, Imola wasn’t great. It’s very difficult and it’s hard for the guys that do such a good job in our team. It doesn’t matter who you put in the car, you can’t go faster than this. It’s not the mechanics, drivers or engineers that are at fault.
“We need a better car. The car needs to change 100 per cent. There is nowhere to hide anymore.”
#5 Porsche crew focused on Manufacturers’ title battle
The 2024 season has been outstanding to this point for the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport trio. They currently lead the standings by nine points and look to be in the mix for the win tomorrow.
Over the other side of the garage, it’s been a tougher campaign. The season started out so well for the #5 crew of Matt Campbell, Fred Makowiecki and Michael Christensen with two podiums in two races, before a retirement at Spa and a sixth-place finish at Le Mans saw them drop down the order in the standings to fifth.
While not impossible to win the title from here – it is highly unlikely as they will need to overturn a 43-point deficit to the sister car before the end of the season.
As a result, Matt Campbell told DSC that their top priority has shifted from winning the Drivers’ Championship to helping Porsche secure the Manufacturers’ crown.
“It’s going better than we expected here for both factory cars,” he commented. “Toyota decided to turn it on during Hyperpole but we expected that. We are happy to be on the second row, and in general, we aren’t the fastest in any sector but are consistent across the lap. Hopefully, that bodes well for the race.
“For us, we are nowhere in the championship, but Porsche leads the Manufacturers’ so we need to support them as much as possible at this stage. We’d still love to get a win before the end of the season as a reward though. We’ve had the speed this year but luck hasn’t gone our way much.”
Points finish the target for BMW
BMW Team WRT’s #20 M Hybrid V8 will start tomorrow’s race from 10th on the grid after Robin Frijns’ effort in Qualifying.
This performance, according to the Dutchman, matches the team’s expectations for tomorrow’s race. While steps are being taken and progress is being made as the season goes on, Frijns admits that the team still has work to do before it can challenge for podiums regularly.
“I think we will finish in a similar place to where we qualified. We just lose a lot on the out laps compared to others, that’s where we are losing the time,” he explained.
“But we definitely see progress. We have flashes, it’s just that we find it’s a small window to get the car to work. Sometimes you’re in that window, like we were briefly at Le Mans and the car worked really well. I also had that in Spa during Qualifying. There is potential.
“Others have a wider window than us, it seems like that. If we have a good day then we can fight for top five, top six like Imola, if we have a bad day we drop down a lot.
“If Toyota on the other hand has a bad day, they are P6, if they have a good day they win, but they are the benchmark.
“Getting both cars in the points would be a good day for us.”
Malykhin extracted the “maximum performance” from Pure Rxcing Porsche in Hyperpole
Pure Rxcing’s Alex Malykhin admitted to DSC that there was nothing more he could have done to take pole in today’s LMGT3 Hyperpole session.
Sarah Bovy’s performance in the Iron Dames Lamborghini was nothing short of spectacular, her best time almost four-tenths quicker than anyone else. According to Malykhin, there was nothing more he could have done.
“At Pure Rxcing we always have good pace, we always do a good job, but we cannot control certain things. Qualifying was ok, it was the maximum. It was not possible for me to find four more tenths and challenge Sarah. She did such a good job,” he said.
“Starting from the first row is still good, because it reduces the risk of contact, which at a circuit like this is important.
While Malykhin missed out on the point for pole – and a chance to take the lead in the championship standings over the EMA crew – no pole-setting car in either class has won a race yet in 2024. And tomorrow is far more important anyway – with 25 points on offer for the race winners.
The task is clear: finish ahead of the EMA Porsche and #31 WRT BMW and secure the points lead ahead of Lone Star Le Mans in September.
“We have confidence in our pace, we feel we may be behind the McLarens and Iron Dames, but if we control the tyre degradation we will have a chance,” he added.
Cottingham satisfied with McLaren pace
While much of the attention during Qualifying and Hyperpole was directed at the Iron Dames Lamborghini and championship-challenging Pure Rxcing Porsche, the performance from United Autosports’ pair of McLarens deserves recognition.
The #95 will start third, alongside the #59 in fourth for tomorrow’s race as the team looks to score its first-ever LMGT3 win and the first-ever class win for McLaren in the WEC.
James Cottingham, who steered the #59 in Qualifying, told DSC that he feels the McLaren GT3 Evo is well suited to the Interlagos circuit and is poised to deliver the team its best result of the season.
“We’ve had a great package all year, but we’ve struggled early doors with sensor issues,” he said. “All of our bad pace was as a result of that. It’s just all coming together in our favour now. It feels like a good playing field and we are really strong.
“Here is all about tyre wear. The McLaren has always been kind to its tyres, but even we are experiencing extreme deg here, so I cannot imagine what the other teams are facing.”
Isotta bouyed by progress
Isotta Fraschini continues to close the performance gap to its Hypercar rivals. Jean-Karl Vernay managed to qualify the Tipo6-C with a time 1.7 seconds off pole, continuing a trend for the team, which continues to improve race by race.
The team was keen to point this out on social media:
The #6hSaoPaulo‘s Qualifying session had been another important step for the #Tipo6LMH Competizione. It showed how much the #IsottaFraschini and #MichelottoEngineering personnel worked hard during the season.
Circuits are different, so to understand how much the #hypercar from… pic.twitter.com/IM9gULWMiC
— Isotta Fraschini Milano Fabbrica Automobili (@IFautomobili) July 13, 2024
Tomorrow’s race is set to start at 11:30 local time. You won’t want to miss it!
Images courtesy of FIA WEC
