Hypercar by the numbers
The overall win for the #15 BMW means that Dries and Laurens Vanthoor become the only brothers to have both scored overall FIA WEC wins.
It was BMW’s second overall victory in WEC after the sister car took the win at Spa this year.
BMW has become the 3rd German marque to win multiple WEC races overall after Audi and Porsche, this despite the fact that BMW had never previously finished higher than P5 at this circuit.
The win is the 8th in the FIA WEC by an LMDh chassis with Porsche, Cadillac and Alpine also on the roll of honour – the second win for the M Hybrid V8 means that BMW overtakes Cadillac for the most wins with the Dallara LMDh spine.
Team WRT is now the 4th team to win multiple races both in LMP2 and overall, after Rebellion, Alpine and Jota.
It’s also the first overall WEC win at Interlagos from a starting position below P2 (#15 qualified P4)
All three drivers in the BMW scored their first overall win, with Vanthoor adding the overall win to a pair of LMP2 class victories with WRT. Dries joins the list of drivers who have won in three separate classes after his Le Mans win with JMW in GTE Am in 2017.
The race marks the first time in the Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie LMH programme that both the #007 and #009 cars have scored points in the same race. The 9th-place finish for the #009 is the first points-scoring result for the car this season.
In sharp contrast, neither Toyota finished in the points at Interlagos for the second consecutive year, with both TR010s failing to score for the first time this season.
LMGT3 by the numbers
The win for the #34 Racing Team Turkey Corvette is believed to mark the first time a Turkish-flagged effort has taken a class win in any track-based FIA World Championship event (the prior Racing Team Turkey efforts operated under the UK flag).
The win marks Corvette’s 12th WEC win and the 4th in the LMGT3 class.
It’s also TF Sport’s 11th win.
It’s the first time since 2023 and the final year of GTE AM that consecutive wins have been scored by Corvette after the Le Mans class win for the sister #33 car.
It’s the 4th time, and 2nd race in a row, that a TF Sport car has won from a starting position of P10 or lower (P17 at Le Mans, P10 today)
Peter Dempsey scored his first WEC win and joins Matt Griffin as a race winner from the Republic of Ireland.
The win marks Salih Yoluc’s 5th WEC class win, all with TF Sport.
Charlie Eastwood, meanwhile, scores his 6th WEC victory and 2nd in the LMGT3 class, after Fuji 2025.
Elsewhere Jonny Edgar took points in the 8th place finish for the #33 TF Sport Corvette and with the absence of Nicky Catsburg adding to the absence of the then-injured Ben Keating for the opening pair of rounds, the drivers championship has the quite remarkable situation where the three drivers occupy first second and third in the standings on different points totals from each other with Edgar leading the way as the only ‘ever present’.
All cars finish
For the first time, Interlagos hosted a race in which all of the starters completed a classified finish.
Interlagos 2026 then becomes the 8th WEC race without a posted retirement or disqualification following Fuji 2023, Bahrain 2021, Cota 2020, Bahrain 2020, Spa 2019, Bahrain 2015, and Fuji 2013 (The race that never was!)
Edgar flying solo ahead of CoTA
The #33 TF Sport Corvette finishing eighth today means Jonny Edgar, the only full-season driver in the car, now leads the Drivers’ Championship in LMGT3 on his own, by four points.
Remarkably, TF Sport drivers now sit first through third in the points table because of this situation, with Nicky Catsburg, who missed today’s race, second, and Ben Keating, who sat out Imola and Spa, third. The gap between Edgar and the nearest competitor from another team is 27 points, to Manthey’s #92 crew.
“I’m happy with the race,” Edgar said post-race, explaining that the #33 crew may have finished higher up the order had it not been for an issue. “I think it was a shame on the pit stop when Ben got out of the car, and we had an issue with the door, so we lost some time because the door wouldn’t close.
“Other than that, I’d say we had a pretty perfect race. We made no mistakes. I think we pitted at the right times when we would catch cars. So yeah, I’m happy to score points and it’s hard to be disappointed. We maybe could have been a bit higher without that one issue, but I think it’s a good result.
“The car felt really good, and I think we did a good job. We improved the car every session. In general, this year, that’s where we have been really strong. I feel like we always make it even better, and we always have a really good kind of race.”
Tuck named Wingfoot Award winner
Proton Competition driver Ben Tuck won the Goodyear Wingfoot Award, presented to the driver of the day in the class, voted by fans. He finished 10th in the #77 Mustang GT3.
“It was a really fun race,” he said. “Eric (Powell) and Stefano (Gattuso) were battling together on the track, but it calmed down after a while, and they were able to lead 1-2. In terms of the Bronze stints, they both did a brilliant job, and I inherited the car in the lead.
“My stints were a lot longer than normal – about 2.5 hours in total – but I had a lot of fun. We finished P10, which in the end wasn’t the result we wanted, but there are lots of positives to take from this race.”
De Vries: Toyota “lacked performance”
Toyota’s visit to Brazil, for the second season in a row, was fruitless, with the Le Mans-winning manufacturer failing to score a single point again. For the #7 crew, who won at La Sarthe, a 12th-place finish was a particularly bitter pill to swallow in the TR010’s first visit to Interlagos.
“We had a very tough weekend,” he said. “We lacked performance; we weren’t quick enough all week and had operational mistakes at the start of the race, which put us on the back foot. From there, we were battling blue flags, which takes you out of the rhythm of the race.”
Garage 59’s lonely race
It was a tough outing for Garage 59’s #10 McLaren, which was the standout car in LMGT3 at Imola and Spa. Post-race, Tom Fleming expressed his disappointment after a weekend in which he felt the team could have scored valuable championship points. Instead, they finished 33rd overall and 16th in class after a wing mirror replacement left them off the lead lap.
“It was pretty boring for us,” he told DSC. “The car had decent pace. I’m really proud of the guys’ engagement and dedication to extracting everything we could. It’s a circuit we had no experience at, so to make a pretty competitive car was encouraging.
“Unfortunately, we had contact with the #21 Ferrari, which took our wing mirror off. There was nothing Antares (Au) could have done. It cost us the best part of a lap to repair it. Then we had other issues at a pit stop that put us two laps down. Then there’s nothing you can do. We got one lap back in the end, but this race doesn’t provide long FCYs or safety cars to help you.
“In terms of the championship fight, we’re in the same boat as everyone else. Each circuit provides different opportunities to score points. Hopefully, we can turn things around. It’s a shame to have a low-scoring run at Le Mans and then nothing here. But I’m positive we can turn things around at CoTA.”
Genesis GMR-001s stay reliable
It was a milestone race for Genesis Magma Racing, as both its GMR-001s made the finish for the first time without any technical issues. The team wasn’t rewarded with points on the board, but it leaves Brazil with lots of data and another performance to build on in the second half of the season.
“The 6 Hours of São Paulo was quite a different race from the previous ones for us,” team principal Cyril Abiteboul said. “The biggest positive was clearly the level of reliability. Getting both cars through the race without any technical issues was a main target coming here after all the data accumulated in Le Mans. It’s great to see that in a limited amount of time, we’ve been able to react and address issues from the first part of the season.
“On the other side, this good reliability exposes more directly our overall performance and, unfortunately, we’ve seen clearly our current limitations in different aspects of our operations and package. The positive is that we accumulated more data on a very specific track, with lots of opportunities to learn and build upon for what’s coming next. If we can carry this reliability, then the next focus will be on cleaner race execution so that we can start climbing up into the classification.”
Newell: “I learned a bit of resilience from today”
Sunday’s race didn’t live up to Saturday’s promise for The Heart of Racing’s #23 crew. After starting from pole, the Vantage failed to feature, losing a bundle of positions at the start, then further time to a spin during Grey Newell’s stint. It never recovered.
The car eventually finished last, struggling for pace with diffuser damage caused by contact with the #83 Ferrari.
“I think I’ve learned a bit of resilience from today,” Newell reflected. “It was tough out there. The tyre just went off so aggressively, and that took me by surprise a bit, and we had a huge amount of oversteer that I will manage better with experience on these tyres. That’s on me.
“I think we still have a bit to learn about setting up the car for the race. Le Mans was a high point, and I got my first pole on Saturday. We’ll bounce back from today’s result and that will be a learning too.”
#50 denied podium after clash and penalty?
Antonello Coletta, the global head of endurance and corse clienti at Ferrari, feels the #50 crew could have finished on the podium with the sister car in today’s race, were it not for the drive-through penalty for FCY speeding and a clash with the #20 BMW at the end.
“We are very pleased with the result achieved at one of the circuits that is certainly not among the most favourable for the 499P,” he said in summary.
“The team did an incredible job with excellent strategies, without which we would not have been able to finish second and fight for the leading positions. There is still a little disappointment over the drive-through for the number 50 and the incident in the final stint, which deprived the car of a possible podium finish. We head home motivated and already focused on the next round in Austin.”
Fans turn out in droves
The attendance record for the 6 Hours of São Paulo was broken for the second year in a row this weekend.
84, 960 fans were trackside for the race, a figure that’s even more impressive when factoring in the dire forecasts in the build-up to Sunday’s action.
Images courtesy of DPPI
