#8 Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa won the FIA ​​World Endurance Championship’s Sao Paulo 6 Hours after the Japanese-German manufacturer controlled the race from the start.

Second place went to the #6 Porsche of Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor, while the sister car, #5, was 2nd-3rd in the hands of Matt Campbell, Michael Christensen and Fred Makowiecki.

Toyota started from pole position with Mike Conway in the #7 car, with Hartley next to him in the #8 Toyota. Conway quickly began to widen the gap to Hartley and by the end of the first hour he was within xx seconds. Toyota’s march continued relentlessly with a speed advantage over its rivals, mostly Porsche but also Ferrari.

However, the front 1-2 collapsed in the second hour as the control unit for the fuel system of the leading #7 car needed repairs as Conway brought it into the pits to hand over to Nyck de Vries. While the run was relatively quick at 3 minutes, the extremely close Hypercar field dropped the #7 Toyota to 17th place and it would require a strong recovery run to get a good result.

This put the #8 Toyota, now in the hands of Ryo Hirakawa, into the lead of the race, a lead that the car rarely relinquished except for brief periods during the pit stops.

Behind them was a battle between the two factory Porsches run by Penske and the #51 Ferrari of Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi. Giovinazzi had started the car from ninth and finished his stint in the car by climbing to fourth place, but briefly took the lead during the pit stop cycle.

However, Ferrari could not overcome the Porsche challenge, no matter how hard they tried. Giovinazzi’s replacement in the #51, Calado, also managed to take the lead during the pit stop cycle, but the Porsche 963 was too fast. In the sixth hour, with Pier Guidi now in the car, he was defending against Campbell in the #5 Porsche, but lost that during the pit stops and dropped to fourth on the road.

However, with great pace and a humbled neck, the #7 Toyota had climbed back up the order and was now challenging for the top 5. When Jenson Button’s #38 JOTA Porsche was forced to take a 5-second pit stop for a technical infringement late in the race, Kamui Kobayashi, now in the #7 car, completed a remarkable recovery in fifth place, followed by Giovinazzi in fourth.

That wasn’t the only notable recovery of the race. The #6 Porsche suffered an early right-rear puncture after a battle with Will Stevens in the #12 JOTA Porsche, which pushed Laurens Vanthoor off the track. The Briton was later given a stop/go penalty for the incident.

With the #6 Porsche now at the back of the field, a comeback was needed. And the team did just that, with Vanthoor, followed by teammates Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre, all finishing in second place, one minute and eight seconds behind the eventual winner Toyota.

The #5 Porsche was third, the #7 Toyota was fourth and the #51 Ferrari was fifth, while sixth place went to the #50 Ferrari of Antionio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina. Like the team car, they lacked the pace to truly challenge at Interlagos and finished a lap behind the eventual winners, the Toyota.

The #8 JOTA Porsche of Button, Oliver Rasmussen and Phil Hanson finished seventh after a race-ending penalty dented their hopes of finishing in the top 5. They performed well throughout the race, remaining in the top 5 for much of the race, including a spectacular battle between Rasmussen and Mikkel Jensen of the Peugeot, which lasted several laps before the golden Porsche finally passed the Peugeot for fifth place. However, after remaining in the top 5 for the rest of the race, the penalty dropped them to seventh, where they finished the race.

Eighth place went to the #93 Peugeot of Jensen, Jean-Eric Vergne and Nico Muller, with the French manufacturer’s improved performance allowing it to finish outside the top 10 in qualifying to score points.

Ninth place went to the #15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Marco Wittmann, while tenth place went to the #36 Alpine of Mich Schumacher, Nico Lapierre and Mathieu Vaxiviere.