The second half of the FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) season started with a six-hour race in São Paulo, Brazil this past weekend, in the fifth round of the season and the first since the 24 Hours of Le Mans in mid-June. BMW M Team WRT put one M Hybrid V8 in the top ten in the Hypercar class and one M4 GT3 in the top five in the LMGT3 class.
Balance of performance (BoP) adjustments before the race resulted in the BMW M Hybrid V8 prototypes given a 5kg weight increase and a power gain of 4kW, while the M4 GT3 was handed down a 22kg weight increase compared to the weight it ran with at Le Mans. The weight increase given to the M4 GT3 was the largest increase of all manufacturers in the LMGT3 class.
In qualifying, only one of the two M Hybrid V8 entries made it into the top ten Hyperpole qualifying session, with the #20 of Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and René Rast in tenth with a 1:24.078. The #7 Toyota was on the pole with a 1:23.140, with all ten cars in Hyperpole qualifying within a second of each other. The #15 M Hybrid V8 of Raffaele Marciello, Dries Vanthoor, and Marco Wittmann qualified in fourteenth with a 1:24.065. In LMGT3 qualifying, the #31 M4 GT3 made it into Hyperpole qualifying sixth with a 1:35.562, with the pole going to the #85 Lamborghini with a 1:34.413. The #46 M4 GT3 qualified in twelfth.
In the race, the Porsche and Toyota entries were the only cars that were in the hunt for the win, as the BMW M Hybrid V8 entries finished in ninth (#15) and fourteenth (#20), as the #20 had a setback with a spin during the race. The race was won by the #8 Toyota, with Porsche 963s following in second and third. “It was a tough race, but we managed to get all four cars to the finish and three of them into the points,” said Head of BMW M Motorsport Andreas Roos. “To be honest, we didn’t have the pace compared to our opponents to challenge for podium places in either class. Taking points is important, but we still have a way to go to the top in the Hypercars. We need to continue working hard to close the gap to the front.”
In LMGT3, the #46 entry of Maxime Martin, Valentino Rossi and Ahmad Al Harthy finished in fifth but didn’t have the pace to be competitive with the frontrunners after the latest BoP adjustments before the race. Despite finishing in fifth, they were two laps down on the winning #92 Porsche. “I am very dissatisfied with the race in the LMGT3 class,” said BMW M Team WRT Team Principal Vincent Vosse. “If we only finish fifth with #46 despite an error-free performance, then something is not right with the speed compared to our competitors.” The #31 M4 GT3 of Darren Leung, Sean Gelael and Augusto Farfus finished in tenth after incurring a penalty.
Next up for the FIA WEC is in the US at the Circuit of the Americas on September 1st. —David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW]
Tags: Brazil hyperpole top five