Sao Paulo World Endurance Championship: Cadillac scores maiden win
Cadillac scores a 1-2 in Sao Paulo en route to a first WEC win.
Cadillac claimed its first-ever victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship with a dominant 1-2 finish in the 6 Hours of São Paulo.
The No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R run by Jota and shared by Alex Lynn, Norman Nato and Will Stevens took the chequered flag with a commanding 57-second advantage over the No. 38 sister entry, crewed by Jenson Button, Sebastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber.
With Ferrari and Toyota never featuring near the front, the race quickly evolved into a three-way fight between the two Cadillacs and the No. 5 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 of Julien Andlauer and Michael Christensen.
Andlauer made a lightning start from second on the grid to snatch the lead for Porsche, while Stevens dropped to third in the pole-sitting No. 12 Cadillac after being handed a drive-through penalty for a tyre infringement. That promoted Bamber in the No. 38 car to second.
By the end of the second hour, both Cadillacs had reeled in Andlauer, who initially fended off the pressure. But Bamber eventually muscled past the Porsche into the Senna S to put the No. 38 Cadillac in front.
Just before the lead changed hands, Stevens had pitted early, and the undercut allowed Lynn—newly installed in the No. 12 Cadillac—to jump ahead of the No. 38 car, now in the hands of Button.
Although the No. 38 held a fuel advantage at that stage, both cars stopped within a lap of each other at the start of the final hour, effectively locking in the No. 12’s track position.
Nato brought the car home ahead of Bourdais to seal a 1-2 finish for General Motors. The win also marked Jota’s second overall WEC victory, following Stevens and Callum Ilott’s triumph at last year’s 6 Hours of Spa in a customer Porsche 963.
Andlauer mounted a final push in the closing stages but had to settle for third place in the best of the Porsches. Just three cars finished on the lead lap.
The No. 6 Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor and Kevin Estre climbed from seventh on the grid to fourth, overcoming a five-second penalty for a pitlane infringement.
Sheldon van der Linde, Rene Rast and Marco Wittmann brought the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 home in fifth, recovering from a drive-through penalty for a Full Course Yellow violation. Van der Linde sealed the position with under 10 minutes remaining, overtaking Loic Duval’s No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 into Turn 4.
Duval, along with teammates Malthe Jakobsen and Stoffel Vandoorne, secured sixth—the French manufacturer’s best result of the season. The No. 93 Peugeot of Jean-Eric Vergne, Paul di Resta and Mikkel Jensen followed in seventh to round out a double points finish for Peugeot.
Ferrari’s winning streak in the 2025 WEC came to an end in Brazil, with the Le Mans-winning No. 83 499P entered privately by AF Corse finishing a distant eighth in the Hypercar class.
Mick Schumacher brought the No. 36 Alpine A424 he shared with Frederic Makowiecki and Jules Gounon to ninth place, while the final point went to the No. 99 Proton Porsche of Nico Varrone, Neel Jani and Nico Pino.
The best of the factory Ferrari LMH cars was the championship-leading No. 51 entry of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi, which finished 11th after incurring a five-second penalty for a start infringement and a drive-through in the final hour for an unsafe overtake on the Proton Porsche.
The No. 50 Ferrari languished in 12th after contact with the No. 33 Corvette Z06.GT3 of Ben Keating led to an unscheduled stop for rear-end repairs.
Toyota suffered an even more bruising afternoon than Ferrari, as both of its GR010 Hybrids trailed home several laps down and out of the points in 14th and 15th—a year on from its dominant victory last year.
Lexus triumphs in LMGT3
While Toyota struggled in Hypercar, its sister brand Lexus delivered a dominant performance in LMGT3. The No. 87 ASP Lexus RC F GT3 driven by Jose Maria Lopez, Clemens Schmid and Razvan Umbrarescu took the class victory by more than half a minute.
Umbrarescu passed the pole-sitting No. 10 Racing Spirit of Leman Aston Martin Vantage GT3 of Anthony McIntosh at the start and never looked back, leading from the front throughout the race.
Although the win was never in doubt, the battle for second raged to the finish. Charlie Eastwood passed Michelle Gatting late on to secure the runner-up spot in the No. 81 TF Sport Corvette Z06 GT3.R he shares with Rui Andrade and Tom van Rompuy.
Home favourite Eduardo Barrichello also cleared Gatting to take third in the No. 10 Aston Martin with McIntosh and Valentin Hasse-Clot.
Gatting, along with Sarah Bovy and Celia Martin, finished fourth in the No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche 911 GT3 R.
In this article
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.
