Hypercar stat attack
The win at the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paolo marks the first WEC win for Cadillac, and the second for Hertz Team Jota.
It sees the Kent, UK-based team become the first team in the Hypercar era to take wins with two different manufacturers in the top class.
Norman Nato took his first win with Jota, having missed their 2024 6 Hours of Spa win due to a clash with his Formula E commitments. It was his third overall win in the FIA WEC after a pair with Rebellion racing in the R13 in 2019/20.
Will Stevens was part of the Spa 2024 winning crew and scored his second win, both with Jota and is the only driver to have now scored race wins with two different marques in Hypercar.
Alex Lynn, meanwhile, scored back-to-back pole positions and took a first overall win in the WEC.
It is believed to be the first FIA World Championship race win by any General Motors brand since RML’s Chevrolet Cruze won in Macao in 2013 in the hands of Yvan Muller, the final race meeting of the FIA WTCC that year.
Cadillac becomes the fourth marque to have scored a 1,2 finish in the Hypercar era after Toyota, Porsche (with Penske and Jota) and Ferrari.
Sebastien Bourdais scored his first FIA WEC overall podium finish.
The #5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 scored its first podium of the season, the first overall WEC podium appearance for Julian Andlauer.
At the other end of the spectrum, it was a crushingly disappointing result for Toyota Gazoo Racing, 14th and 15th overall, which sees the Toyota factory team fail to score a World Championship point for the first time since the team suffered double disqualification at Silverstone in 2018, some 44 WEC races ago.
Milestones across LMGT3
In LMGT3, Lexus and Akkodis ASP take their first race wins, as do Clemens Schmid and Petru Umbrarescu.
Umbrarescu is understood to have become the first Romanian winner in any class in any FIA World Championship event.
José María López, meanwhile, becomes the first driver to win a race in both Hypercar and LMGT3.
The #81 TF Sport Corvette crew of Charlie Eastwood, Rui Andrade and Tom van Rompuy scored back-to-back podiums after finishing third at Le Mans.
And it was a first FIA WEC podium finish for Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin crew Valentin Hasse Clot, Eduardo Barrichello and a podium finish on his WEC debut for Tony Mcintosh.
Proton Competition’s Neel Jani, Nico Pino and Nico Varrone score their first World Drivers Championship points with a fine 10th place finish.
With Lopez’s win in LMGT3, Eduardo Barrichello’s third place with Racing Spirit of Leman and Nico’s Pino and Varrone, four South American drivers from three nations made podiums in Brazil!
Across all of the podiums in Hypercar, LMGT3 and the Hypercar World Cup, drivers from every continent other than Antarctica were represented.
Goodyear Hard the key to victory
AKKODIS ASP owner Jerome Policand gave high praise to the new Goodyear Eagle Hard tyre post-race.
“Last year, we were nowhere, and it was an annoying situation because we’d come from winning most GT3 championships in the world (before switching from Mercedes-AMG to Lexus). We have high standards, so it was a big shock to be a backmarker,” he said.
“But we concentrated on making the car quicker. We know now we have the performance over one lap, but usually, we struggle with deg. So thanks to Goodyear coming with the Harder compound. It was key to us today because usually we lose pace in the second stint, and today we stayed in front.”
Tough day for Alpine
It was a difficult outing for Alpine’s #35 A424 in Brazil, Ferdinand Habsburg explained to DSC that the car suffered an MGU failure in practice and then a battery failure in the race.
“The battery just went flat and needed replacing,” he said. “It was fine after we went back out, but we lost so much time.”
Record attendance
The WEC’s popularity is growing in South America. 84,741 fans were reported to have attended a record for the event and a significant increase on last year’s 73,205.
