BMW Beats Ferrari in WEC 6 Hours of São Paulo

BMW M Team WRT held off a fast-closing Ferrari to win the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo, surviving Cadillac's early speed and a bold Alpine strategy call along the way, while Racing Team Turkey by TF made it back-to-back Corvette victories in LMGT3.

Magnussen takes the fight to Cadillac

A damp track ahead of the start caught out Mike Conway, who clipped the pit wall on his reconnaissance lap and forced Toyota Racing into a hurried bodywork change before the lights even went out. It set the tone for a difficult weekend at Interlagos for the reigning Le Mans winners.

@crédit : DPPI

At the front, Will Stevens made a clean getaway from pole and kept Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA's cars ahead of the field. Kevin Magnussen had other ideas. The Dane passed Frédéric Makowiecki's Alpine at the first corner, then set off after the two Cadillacs. On lap 11 he forced his way past Earl Bamber at Ferradura, contact and all, and immediately turned his attention to the sister car. Stevens still led by a little over four seconds after the opening hour. It wasn't enough to shake BMW off.

Cadillac's pit stops open the door

Cadillac's race unravelled at the first round of scheduled stops. Bamber locked his brakes entering the pit box and had to be repositioned by his mechanics; Stevens then lost more time to a stuck wheel nut. Magnussen inherited the net lead once Alpine's off-strategy car cycled through the pits, and Cadillac spent much of the middle stint clawing back the deficit.

Stevens fought his way past Brendon Hartley's Toyota, Antonio Giovinazzi's Ferrari and Yifei Ye's AF Corse entry in the recovery drive that followed, but trouble kept finding him: a five-second penalty for contact with Clemens Schmid's Lexus, then a spin for Norman Nato as he squabbled with Phil Hanson for position.

Alpine's gamble complicates the picture

While BMW and Cadillac slugged it out, Alpine ran its own race. Ferdinand Habsburg was short-fuelled early to snatch brief track position, and António Félix da Costa then led long stretches of the third and fourth hours on an alternative strategy that kept the car out of sequence with the leaders.

Raffaele Marciello eventually caught da Costa and tried a move at Turn 4, running wide in the process and handing the place straight back. He had to wait for Alpine's next stop, when Charles Milesi took over, before BMW could clear the way. The delay let Alessandro Pier Guidi's Ferrari close right up on the BMW, turning what had briefly looked like a three-way fight into a straight scrap between the two. Alpine's second entry lost ground to a pit-stop penalty for Victor Martins and a late slow puncture, ending any hope of turning the strategy into a podium.

Ferrari closes in, but BMW holds on

Pier Guidi brought the Ferrari to within two seconds of the BMW before handing over to James Calado, who then clipped a piece of trackside advertising boarding on his way out of the pits and carried it round for several laps. It didn't stop him taking the lead during the final round of stops, a lead BMW snatched back with a cleaner stop of its own.

Dark clouds built over Interlagos in the closing stages but the rain never arrived. Dries Vanthoor, who took the car to the flag, kept Calado at arm's length for the rest of the race and crossed the line 2.254 seconds clear after 242 laps. It was BMW M Team WRT's second win of the season, following the marque's breakthrough victory at Spa-Francorchamps.

Cadillac salvages third and fourth

Stevens and Nato recovered to third, six seconds further back, while Bamber, Sébastien Bourdais and Jack Aitken brought the sister car home fourth after a late swap briefly promoted Aitken for a chase of Calado that never quite came off. Cadillac had locked out the front row in Hyperpole; converting that into a repeat São Paulo win was always going to be a stretch after the pit-lane errors of the opening stint.

Drama behind the podium, and a miserable weekend for Toyota

The fight for the minor places turned physical in the closing laps. Robin Frijns tried to pass Antonio Fuoco's Ferrari into the Senna Esses; the move sent the Italian into a spin and promoted Robert Kubica's AF Corse entry instead, sharing with Ye and Hanson. Stewards looked at the incident after the flag, and their verdict reshuffled the minor places: Fuoco's Ferrari was promoted to seventh, the BMW of Frijns, René Rast and Sheldon van der Linde dropped to eighth, and the Aston Martin Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble moved up to sixth.

Toyota's weekend, meanwhile, could hardly have gone worse. Conway's early bodywork repair was followed by penalties for a start infringement and a Full Course Yellow breach, leaving him, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries a lap down in twelfth. The sister car fared worse: contact with Marco Sørensen's Aston Martin and André Lotterer's Genesis damaged a toe rod and cost Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa around twelve laps in the pits, leaving them last in Hypercar. Conway's crew had arrived in Brazil leading the drivers' championship. They left without it.

Pos	Team	Drivers	Gap
1	BMW M Team WRT	K. Magnussen, R. Marciello, D. Vanthoor	Winner
2	Ferrari AF Corse	A. Pier Guidi, J. Calado, A. Giovinazzi	+2.254s
3	Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA	W. Stevens, N. Nato	+6.687s
4	Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA	E. Bamber, S. Bourdais, J. Aitken	+12.666s
5	AF Corse	Y. Ye, R. Kubica, P. Hanson	+32.351s
6	Aston Martin THOR Team	H. Tincknell, T. Gamble	+35.566s
7	Ferrari AF Corse	A. Fuoco, M. Molina, N. Nielsen	+39.952s
8	BMW M Team WRT	R. Frijns, R. Rast, S. van der Linde	+40.047s
9	Aston Martin THOR Team	A. Riberas, M. Sørensen	+45.523s
10	Alpine Endurance Team	A. Félix da Costa, C. Milesi, F. Habsburg	+56.996s
11	Alpine Endurance Team	F. Makowiecki, J. Gounon, V. Martins	+1:17.818
12	Toyota Racing	M. Conway, K. Kobayashi, N. de Vries	+1 lap
13	Genesis Magma Racing	M. Jaminet, P-L. Chatin, D. Juncadella	+1 lap
14	Peugeot TotalEnergies	L. Duval, M. Jakobsen, T. Pourchaire	+1 lap
15	Genesis Magma Racing	A. Lotterer, P. Derani, M. Jaubert	+1 lap
16	Peugeot TotalEnergies	P. Di Resta, S. Vandoorne, N. Cassidy	+2 laps
17	Toyota Racing	S. Buemi, B. Hartley, R. Hirakawa	+12 laps

Racing Team Turkey doubles up

Racing Team Turkey by TF followed its Le Mans win with a second consecutive Corvette victory, built on a driver order that ran against the grain of the rest of the field. While most LMGT3 crews opened with their Bronze-rated driver, the Turkish squad started Salih Yoluç, its Silver-rated racer, and had him complete a long double stint before handing over to Peter Dempsey. The car fell out of sequence early but moved into the net lead during the third hour, and Charlie Eastwood kept it there through the final stint, crossing the line 8.108 seconds ahead of Team WRT's BMW after 219 laps.

Ford's early charge fades

The two Proton Competition Ford Mustangs set the pace in the opening hours after pole-sitter Gray Newell struggled off the line in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin. Stefano Gattuso passed the early-leading Lexus of Petru Umbrărescu into the Senna Esses, Eric Powell followed him through, and the Fords ran one-two until the two cars touched at the exit of the same corner and Powell lost momentum.

Proton then split its strategy, pulling Gattuso once he'd completed his mandatory Bronze-driver time in one car while Powell stayed in the other for a longer stint. Sebastian Priaulx nearly made a one-stop-fewer strategy work, holding second for most of the final hour before his older tyres gave way. Dan Harper took the place for BMW with twenty minutes left, and a late track-limits penalty dropped the Proton car to tenth.

Team WRT and Manthey complete the podium

Second place gave Team WRT its first podium of the season, and came with extra weight after the sister car's gearbox failure had ended its Le Mans early. Anthony McIntosh and Parker Thompson kept the Brazilian-liveried BMW in touch with the leaders before Harper's late pass on Priaulx secured the result, though the gap to the winning Corvette proved too much to close.

The Bend Manthey took third with Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz, resisting late pressure from Logan Sargeant's Proton Ford to claim the team's third podium of the season. The sister Manthey DK Engineering Porsche came through to fourth, and Iron Lynx's Mercedes-AMG rounded out the top six after Rui Andrade spun following contact with Sean Gelael's BMW, an incident stewards chose not to pursue further.

Pos	Team	Drivers	Gap
1	Racing Team Turkey by TF	P. Dempsey, S. Yoluç, C. Eastwood	Winner
2	Team WRT	A. McIntosh, P. Thompson, D. Harper	+8.108s
3	The Bend Manthey	Y. Shahin, R. Pera, R. Lietz	+1 lap
4	Manthey DK Engineering	J. Cottingham, T. Boguslavskiy, A. Güven	+1 lap
5	Proton Competition	S. Gattuso, G. Levorato, L. Sargeant	+1 lap
6	Iron Lynx	M. Berry, R. Andrade, M. Martin	+1 lap
7	Akkodis ASP Team	P. Umbrărescu, C. Schmid, J. Lopez	+1 lap
8	TF Sport	B. Keating, J. Edgar, N. Varrone	+1 lap
9	Vista AF Corse	F. Heriau, S. Mann, A. Rovera	+1 lap
10	Proton Competition	E. Powell, B. Tuck, S. Priaulx	+1 lap
11	Garage 59	A. West, F. Gehrsitz, B. Goethe	+1 lap
12	Team WRT	D. Leung, S. Gelael, A. Farfus	+1 lap
13	Heart of Racing Team	I. James, Z. Robichon, M. Drudi	+2 laps
14	Akkodis ASP Team	T. Van Rompuy, H. David, E. Masson	+2 laps
15	Iron Lynx	J. Zelger, M. Cressoni, L. Hodenius	+2 laps
16	Garage 59	A. Au, T. Fleming, M. Kirchhöfer	+2 laps
17	Vista AF Corse	T. Flohr, F. Castellacci, D. Rigon	+2 laps
18	Heart of Racing Team	G. Newell, J. Adam, K. Pauwels	+3 laps