Cadillac has delivered: Jota Sport celebrated a double victory with the V-Series.R at the 6 hours of Sao Paulo. For the first time, the General Motors branch managed to convert the speed that was previously only indicated to a top result across an entire race. ASP with the Lexus RC F LMGT3, which won the GT category for the first time, experienced a similar breakthrough.
As with the 24 hours of Le Mans, Cadillac lost the lead in the first round when Julien Andlauer in Porsche #5 (Andlauer/Christensen; 3rd) pre -tied and this defended for almost two hours. The race was almost consistently under green flag-only four very short full-course yellow phases for collecting debris interrupted the rhythm.
Porsche was equal to Porsche, but it soon became clear that Cadillac was superior in tire wear. After around 100 minutes, Andlauer was increasingly under pressure.
The decisive change at the top took place at the second pit stop: the Cadillac #12 (Lynn/NATO/Stevens; 1.) took the lead by undercut, while the sister car #38 (Bamber/Bourdais/Button; 2.) prevailed against the Porsche.
#12 wins despite the passage penalty
After that, Cadillac also crystallized. The #12 launched by the Pole was clear the faster vehicle and gradually settled. After the very beginning, the crew had to accept a passage because the tire pressures in round 7 to 14 were below the permissible minimum. But thanks to a clever strategy, the car returned to the top before half -time – and from then on drove everything to the ground.
It is the first victory for the Cadillac V-Series.R in the long-distance world worker (WEC), two and a half years after the vehicle’s debut. For Jota, it is the second overall victory in the Hypercar class after the sensation success with the private Porsche 963 in Spa 2024.
In view of the Balance of Performance (BOP), Cadillac was one of the favorites in Interlagos, but the extent of the dominance was already. “We only drive against Porsche, and even a little bit,” amazed Jenson Button in the interview during the race. In the end, his #38 had to defend himself again to the attack of the #5 resounded on the cool route, but saved the double victory to the finish.
These figures show how overwhelming the dominance of Cadillacs #12: Despite the passage penalty, the winners drove 57.016 seconds on their second -placed teammates. Only three cars stayed in the leadership round. Everything was rounded twice to 6th place, all vehicles from eleventh place even had three rounds behind. Without the passage penalty, #12 could have rounded all opponents.
The compact route in Interlagos helps to build larger distances. Nevertheless, the times of time were more reminiscent of earlier long -distance races in which reliability stood above all.
BMW still catches Peugeot
Porsche had to be content with three and four. While the #5 completed a straightforward race, #6 (Estre/l. Vanthoor; 4.) had to work forward from the seventh place.
The Peugeot #93 (Di Resta/Jensen; 7.) proved to be a hard opponent: the 9×8 had more top speed, so Laurens Vanthoor took almost 100 minutes to find a gap in the round. The #94 (Duval/Jakobsen; 6.) was later undermined by strategy.
Peugeot seemed long on the way to places five and six – until the BMW #20 (Rast/Wittmann/S. van der Linde; 5.) appeared on the radar with an energy -saving strategy. In the second half of the race, the WRT team fueled past a 9×8 and grabbed the other on the track.
For Peugeot it was nevertheless the first noteworthy result 2025. After technical problems and false strategy in spa, when you were already competitive, and the French factory team was finally able to collect plenty of points in Le Mans.
The other BMW M Hybrid V8, the #15 (D. Vanthoor/Magnussen/Marciello; 17.), came to the box for nine minutes after the start and lost 19 rounds with a brake problem.
Ferrari with damage limitation
Best Ferrari 499P was the private AF Corse insert #83 (Kubica/Ye/Hanson), who won eighth place. Le Mans’s winning car was again the most competitive 499p. The factory cars could not build on the pace in the race that they once indicated in the third training session.
The factory car also had no clean races: the #50 (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen; 12.) was hit at the rear when a corvette was inserted behind the Ferrari too early. The damaged hypercar was ordered to the box by “franking flag”, the time loss was significant.
The #51 (Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi; 11.), went from the penultimate place to the race, was on the way to a point shoulder. However, she received a passage in the last hour because Alessandro Pier Guidi crowded the Proton Porsche #99 (Jani/Pino/Varrone; 10.) in a duel.
The Alpine #36 (Gounon/Makowiecki/Schumacher; 9.) and secured two points between the two privately used hypercars. In the end, the yellow Ferrari was only 0.754 seconds before the final driver Mick Schumacher. With a better starting place, it would have been the eighth place.
The Alpine #35 (Chatin/Habsburg/Milesi; DNF) was the only hypercar. A defect in the hybrid system activated the red warning signal, whereupon the car was taken out of the race.
Toyota completely without a chance
Sao Paulo was not worth a trip for Toyota. The Toyota #8 (Hartley/Hirakawa; 15.) was passed through in the start phase. The #7 (Conway/Kobayashi/de Vries; 14.) started from the back and could never be in the spotlight. Without safety cars, catching up was out of the question – the result: zero points.
Of course, the poor performance is also due to the BOP, but even compared to the even less rated Ferrari 499P, last year’s winner Toyota remained pale.
As announced in the Longrun analysis, Aston Martin was not yet strong enough to fight points on his own. Nevertheless, Sao Paulo saw the strongest appearance of the Valkyries so far. The Aston Martin #009 (Riberas/Sörensen; 13.) left both Toyota behind.
The #007 (Tincknell/Gamble; 16.) was forced to a turner by a collision when it was rounded when Francesco Castellacci did not expect Harry Tincknell to overtake in Ferradura.
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