FIA WEC - 6 Hours of Sao Paulo from Brazil’s Interlagos circuit

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In a season full of firsts for the Corvette Racing program, this weekend in the FIA World Endurance Championship presents another new opportunity with the running of the Six Hours of Sao Paulo from Brazil’s Interlagos circuit.

TF Sport and its pair of Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs are set for their first race in South America as the WEC leaves the European continent after three consecutive rounds.

The six-driver lineup continues on as it has for the previous four FIA WEC rounds Tom Van Rompuy, Rui Andrade and Corvette factory driver Charlie Eastwood in the No. 81 Z06 GT3.R while Hiroshi Koizumi, Sebastien Baud and factory driver Daniel Juncadella are in the No. 82 Corvette.
Both TF Sport entries are coming off solid runs at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where both Corvettes completed the full 24 hours.

The results marked a key achievement in the first year of the Z06 GT3.R, which has shown increased reliability since the first races of 2024 at Daytona and Qatar.
The 15-turn, 2.677-mile Interlagos track will be the 38th different circuit on which a Corvette Racing entry will compete in its 25-year run. In addition to being a new track to the Corvette Racing program, Interlagos is the shortest track on the WEC schedule.

The layout features a number of mid- and high-speed corners, which should ideally suit the characteristics of the first-year Z06 GT3.R.

This won’t be the first time a Corvette competes at Interlagos in WEC competition. Larbre Competition campaigned an independent Corvette C6.Rs in 2012 and 2013 with a runner-up GTE Am finish in the former.

The Six Hours of Sao Paulo is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, July 14.
MotorTrend TV will air live television coverage with streaming coverage on the FIA WEC app and the MAX app in the U.S. all beginning at 10 a.m. ET. Radio Le Mans also will stream audio coverage of Saturday’s final practice and qualifying, plus Sunday’s race.

TF SPORT PRE-EVENT DRIVER QUOTES

DANIEL JUNCADELLA, NO. 82 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“Sao Paulo is a really cool event. It’s a place WEC hasn’t been in some time. Going back to Brazil for racing is always cool. I raced there in 2008 in Formula BMW where I have some good memories. I have not so great memories from the last time I was in Sao Paulo! I was in Formula One where I went off and crashed in the Force India car.

Nevertheless, it’s a cool place. I like the track a lot. It has an excellent mix of fast corners and tight sections, and I think many of those sections should suit our Corvette. So I’m excited for this. WEC has been a cool season so far, even though we haven’t achieved yet the results we were hoping for at the start. It’s another event where we can turn things around and have some fun.
Hopefully we’ll have a fast and clean car for the race and then go fight at the end.”

SEBASTIEN BAUD, NO. 82 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“I can’t wait to go to Brazil for the next WEC round. With TF Sport and Corvette Racing, we continue to gain momentum and a better understanding of this magnificent Corvette GT3 car! My teammates and I are motivated to achieve a great result there on such a legendary circuit like Interlagos.

It will be a totally new track and event for me, so for sure there is a lot to discover. So I will have to be even more vigilant and attentive to be able to perform to the best of my abilities for the team. I’m ready for it.”

 

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Results of second practice

 

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Third practice results
UK teams 2 Z06s, 1 ran poorly and near bottom of place, where the other was in fifth place
In LMGT3, Porsche ran fastest too, the No. 92 joint championship-leading Manthey Pure Rxcing Porsche ending up atop the leaderboard with a 1m35.488s set by Alex Malykhin.

It was an encouraging session for United Autosports, its pair of McLaren GT3 Evos ending up second and fourth, with the No. 95 getting within a tenth of the Pure Rxcing 911 with a 1m35.550s. The Iron Dames Lamborghini split the two McLarens, with a 1m35.639s from Sarah Bovy.

It was an almost incident-free session, despite the rain, and there were just two notable moments. One was a clash between the No. 36 Alpine of Matthieu Vaxiviere and No. 11 Isotta Fraschini of Carl Bennett at Turn 8. Thankfully, it was only a light tough and a spin for the Tipo6-C.

The other was unseen contact for the No. 31 WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 which prompted the team to box the car for a bodywork check.

Qualifying is next up at 2:30pm local time.

 

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Van Rompuy advances to third Hyperpole in five races; No. 82 Corvette starts 13th

SAO PAULO, Brazil (July 13, 2024) – Tom Van Rompuy and the No. 81 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R will start on the outside of the fourth row in Sunday’s Six Hours of São Paulo for the FIA World Endurance Championship.
The TF Sport driver ended Saturday’s LMGT3 Hyperpole session in eighth in the Corvette that he will share with Rui Andrade and Corvette factory driver Charlie Eastwood.

Van Rompuy advanced to the Hyperpole session for the top-10 qualifiers in the class for the third time in five races. He was sixth-fastest in the 15-minute qualifying session at 1:35.744 (100.662 mph) and posted a lap of 1:35.931 (100.476 mph) in Hyperpole.

His run was compromised by a red flag in the first half of the session that sapped some of the energy from his Goodyear tires but more critically by a slower car for the remaining eight minutes of green-flag time. Nevertheless, the pace of both TF Sport Corvettes has been strong and consistent in the first trip to the Interlagos circuit for the team and the first for the WEC since 2014.

Hiroshi Koizumi’s No. 82 Corvette Z06 GT3.R will start 13th after missing the Hyperpole session by just 0.143 seconds – a razor-thin margin in a very difficult class – with a lap of 1:36.169 (100.227 mph). He will drive with Sebastien Baud and Corvette factory driver Daniel Juncadella, who is the only of the trio who has previously raced at Interlagos.

The Six Hours of São Paulo is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. ET on Sunday, July 14. MotorTrend TV will air live television coverage with streaming coverage on the FIA WEC app and the MAX app in the U.S. Radio Le Mans also will stream audio coverage of the race.

TF SPORT POST-QUALIFYING DRIVER QUOTES

TOM VAN ROMPUY, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R – Qualified eighth in LMGT3:

“Today was a good day. I think I did quite well in qualifying with P6 and had a purple sector in Sector Two.
In Hyperpole I struggled to get a good gap to the car ahead of me, but at the end of my push lap and four corners from the end.
At that point you have to commit to it otherwise the peak of the tires is gone. So I lost a bit of time.

Then again, it’s a long race and I feel confident about tomorrow. We have a good setup for the race, and I think it will be a struggle for everyone to keep the tires alive because this track is very rough on them. I have a good feeling.
I’ll try to do a good double-stint to try and gain some places so we can contend for a top-five or even a podium tomorrow.”

HIROSHI KOIZUMI, NO. 82 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R – Qualified 13th in LMGT3:

“The gap to 10th place in qualifying was very small. I’m hoping to find some tenths of a second to move up in my stint.
It was a good run for Tom in the other car. I want to make sure I can follow and stay close to the cars in front of me and hopefully gain some positions before my teammates get in the race.”

 

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End of race

The best the UK TF sport team could do is 1 lap down in 8th place and their other Z06 was out by 133 laps into the 6-hour race

 

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TF Sport’s pair of Chevy Corvette Z06 GT3.Rs showed their potential as the team’s FIA World Endurance Championship campaign continued to show improvements heading into the season’s stretch run and a home race for the Corvette in the United States.

The No. 81 TF Sport trio of Tom Van Rompuy, Rui Andrade and Corvette factory driver Charlie Eastwood placed eighth in the 17-car LMGT3 field at the end of the Six Hours of São Paulo. It was their best result since the season’s second race at Imola
. But the Brazil round also showed that podium finishes are likely on the horizon in the team’s first year with the Corvette platform.

Van Rompuy began eighth in LMGT3 but moved up two places in the opening 10 minutes. He was on his way into the top-five before he was hit by one of the GT3-class Porsche's moments later and spun off the track. The No. 81 Corvette rejoined in 14th.

That put the No. 82 Z06 GT3.R of Hiroshi Koizumi as the lead Corvette, having moved to ninth from his 13th-place starting spot. Both he and Van Rompuy drove double-stints to start the race, with both Corvettes in the top-10 by the time TF Sport made their first driver changes two hours in.

Andrade took over the No. 81 Corvette and was involved in a multi-car battle for fifth place, with four cars racing within four seconds of each other. Meanwhile, Sebastien Baud took over the No. 82 Z06 GT3.R, which had to serve a drive-through penalty before the driver swap.

Baud showed good pace and made the driver change to factory driver Daniel Juncadella to go the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, on his way out onto the track, a mechanical problem sidelined the Corvette after 133 laps.

That left the No. 81 to battle the balance of the GT3 field. Andrade ran in the top five before handing over to Eastwood to drive nearly two-and-a-half hours to the end. Eastwood continued to contend for a top-five finish before an unfortunate penalty during a full-course caution period near the five-hour mark.
He continued to show the potential of the Z06 GT3.R with the sixth-fastest lap of the 49 LMGT3 drivers in the race.

TF Sport’s next race in the FIA WEC is the Lone Star Le Mans from Circuit of the Americas in Austin from August 30-September 1.

TF SPORT POST-EVENT DRIVER QUOTES

CHARLIE EASTWOOD, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R – FINISHED EIGHTH IN LMGT3:

“It was a tough race for us. The positive is the pace was really strong. A couple of things didn’t go our way, with Tom getting caught up in a racing incident, which really put us on the back foot trying not to go a lap down. A late drive-through really took us out of it.
Ultimately we were eight seconds from P4, but that meant P8. It was a super-strong performance with the car. It was really positive, but unfortunately a couple of things didn’t go our way.”

RUI ANDRADE, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R – FINISHED EIGHTH IN LMGT3:

“There are some positives to take from today. We had some contact for Tom early. It was tough to manage my pace in my double-stint. Charlie looked incredibly quick at the end, so the car was definitely strong. If you take out the penalty and the contact, we could have been fighting for the podium.

That’s the first time this year that we can say that, so that’s a big positive. The Corvette felt good all weekend and had no issues. We’ve taken some good steps forward. The pit stops were fine, and we had no problems there. It’s tough to take when it doesn’t go your way but we have some positives to look at.”

TOM VAN ROMPUY, NO. 81 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R – FINISHED EIGHTH IN LMGT3:

“It’s true that today we had a strong car. It was in good shape today.
But we had the bad luck of one of the Porsche's kicking us off the track and had a spin. So we had come all fighting from the back.

We got it back to eighth after my double-stint. Then we had a couple of other things, like a drive-through for a penalty under full-course yellow.
The potential is there, and we showed it today with the Corvette. Everything just needs to fall together and we’ll get a good result.
Hopefully in the next three races we can put it all together.”

DANIEL JUNCADELLA, NO. 82 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“Unfortunately, coming out of the pits, I had a technical issue and the car wasn’t able to keep running.
We’ll have to analyze to see what happened. It’s a shame because the car was running really well. Seb was really fast in that stint.
It wasn’t meant to be this time.”

SEBASTIEN BAUD, NO. 82 CHEVROLET CORVETTE Z06 GT3.R:

“We started well. It was a good qualifying result of the season for Hiroshi.
For myself, I think it was a very good run. The car was good and fast. I liked it a lot. I tried to manage the tires to help with the degradation.
The Corvette was good on this track. Unfortunately, we had a mechanical problem that stopped us.

I’m sorry for Dani because he didn’t get to drive today. We’ll try and come back stronger for COTA and the home race for Corvette.
I hope we finish in the top-five. I really want a podium. The car is strong, and the team is strong.
We just need a chance to get up there, stay focused and keep pushing.”