Sao Paulo World Endurance Championship: Cadillac locks out front row
Cadillac makes it back-to-back poles in the WEC.
Alex Lynn led a front-row lockout for Cadillac in qualifying for the FIA World Endurance Championship’s Six Hours of Sao Paulo.
Lynn set the pace around Interlagos with a lap of 1m22.570s aboard the No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh, edging out teammate Sebastien Bourdais in the No. 38 sister car by exactly a tenth of a second.
It marked Lynn’s second consecutive WEC pole, having also topped the Hyperpole session at last month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans. Bourdais also matched his Le Mans starting position by securing second.
Porsche emerged as Cadillac’s nearest challenger, with Julien Andlauer posting the third-fastest time in the factory No. 5 Penske-run 963 LMDh, 0.250s off the pace.
Malthe Jakobsen propelled the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 to a strong fourth-place result, with Paul di Resta taking sixth in the sister No. 93 LMH.
Seventh place went to Kevin Estre in the No. 6 Porsche, who will share the fourth row of the grid with fellow qualifying standout Dries Vanthoor in the No. 15 BMW.
The Le Mans-winning No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P could only manage ninth in Brazil, with Robert Kubica ending up more than eight tenths adrift of pole.
A year on from dominating the Sao Paulo event, Toyota could manage a best finish of 10th in qualifying, courtesy of Ryo Hirakawa in the No. 8 GR010 Hybrid.
Neither of the two factory Ferrari hypercars made it into Hyperpole. Antonio Fuoco was 14th in Q1 aboard the No. 50 car, while Antonio Giovinazzi could do no better than 17th in the No. 51 car.
The two Alpine A424s also struggled for pace, with Mick Schumacher and Paul-Loup Chatin qualifying 15th and 16th respectively, slotting in between the Ferraris.
Kamui Kobayashi propped up the Hypercar field in 18th in the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid.
Update: The No. 38 Cadillac was demoted to third on the grid for impeding the No. 93 Peugeot in qualifying.
In the LMGT3 class, home favourite Eduardo Barrichello took pole position in the No. 10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3.
The son of ex-Formula 1 driver Rubens Barrichello posted a best time of 1m33.849s in the Hyperpole shootout to narrowly beat the No. 83 ASP Lexus RC F GT3 of Clemens Schmid by just 0.024s.
Finn Gehrsitz qualified third in the sister ASP Lexus entry.
Championship leader Manthey endured a difficult session, with Ryan Hardwick eliminated in Q1 in the No. 92 Porsche 911 GT3 R. He will start 13th in class.
Both AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3s also failed to progress past the opening phase of qualifying.
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Rachit joined the Crash.net team in 2025 with a primary focus on F1 and sportscar racing.
He previously served as a news editor at Motorsport.com, where he played a key role in the day-to-day editorial operations.
