#8 Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa have won the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, after the Japanese-German manufacturer controlled the race from the getgo.
In second was the #6 Porsche of Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer, and Laurens Vanthoor, while sister #5 car made it a Porsche 2-3, in the hands of Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen, and Fred Makowiecki.
Toyota started on pole with Mike Conway in the #7 car, with Hartley in the #8 Toyota alongside him. Conway soon started building a gap to Hartley, and by the end of the first hour, it stood at xx seconds. Toyota’s march continued relentless, with a pace advantage over their challengers, mainly in the form of Porsche, but also Ferrari.
However, the 1-2 at the front was dented in the second hour as the leading #7 car, which Conway had brought in to the pits to hand over to Nyck de Vries, needed the control unit for the fuel system repairing. While the work was relatively quick at 3 mins, with the exceedingly close Hypercar field this sunk the #7 Toyota to 17th position, and would require a mighty recovery drive to get a good result.
This put the #8 Toyota, now in the hands of Ryo Hirakawa, into the lead of the race — one the car wouldn’t really relinquish, except for brief periods at pitstops.
Behind them there was a battle between the two Penske-run factory Porsches, and the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, and Antonio Giovinazzi. Giovinazzi had started the car from ninth and worked his way up over his stint in the car, climbing out of the car in fourth position, although he briefly inherited the lead during the pitstop cycle.
However, try as they might, Ferrari couldn’t quite overcome the challenge from Porsche. Giovinazzi’s replacement in the #51, Calado, also managed to take the lead during the pitstop cycle, but the Porsche 963’s pace was just too great. By the sixth hour, with Pier Guidi now in the car,, he was defending from Campbell in the #5 Porsche, but lost this at the pitstops and dropped to fourth on the road.
However, the #7 Toyota, with great pace and having its neck wrung, had climbed back up the order and was now challenging the top 5. When the #38 JOTA Porsche of Jenson Button received a 5 second stop go for a technical infringement late in the race, Kamui Kobayashi, now in the #7 car, took fifth, and then took fourth of Giovinazzi to cap and remarkable recovery.
This wasn’t the race’s only remarkable recovery. The #6 Porsche was beset by a right rear puncture early on, after a battle with Will Stevens in the #12 JOTA Porsche, with Stevens pushing Laurens Vanthoor off track. The Briton would later receive a stop/go penalty for the incident.
With the #6 Porsche now at the back of the field, a comeback was needed. And the team did just that, with Vanthoor, then his teammates Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre, all contributing to a second placed finished, a minute and eight seconds behind the winning Toyota.
With the #5 Porsche in third, #7 Toyota fourth and #51 Ferrari fifth, sixth was taken by the #50 Ferrari of Antionio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen, and Miguel Molina. Much like the team car, they just didn’t have the pace to truly challenge at Interlagos, and finished a lap down to the victorious Toyota.
The #8 JOTA Porsche of Button, Oliver Rasmussen and Phil Hanson finished seventh after a late race penalty destroyed their hopes of a top 5 finish. They’d run well all race, in the top 5 for much ofg it, including a fantastic battle between Rasmussen and Peugeot’s Mikkel Jensen which lasted multiple laps and ended with the gold Porsche finally getting past the Peugeot, to take fifth. However, after staying in the top 5 for the remainder of the race, the penalty dropped them to seventh, where they’d finish.
Eighth went to the aforementioned Peugeot, the #93 car, of Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne, and Nico Muller, who climbed out from qualifying outside the top 10 to claim points in an improved performance for the French manufacturer.
Ninth was the #15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Marco Wittmann, while 10th went to the #36 Alpine of Mich Schumacher, Nico Lapierre, and Mathieu Vaxiviere.
