Race day at the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo began with a slightly damp track, which caught out Mike Conway on his reconnaissance lap as the recent 24 Hours of Le Mans winner made contact with the pit wall and had to have the front bodywork changed on the #7 Toyota TR010 Hybrid Hypercar
Will Stevens led away confidently at the start prior to opening up an early five-second margin over the #15 BMW M Team WRT entry driven by Kevin Magnussen, after the Dane had put a decisive move on the front row-starting #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R of Earl Bamber
Magnussen complained of a lack of power in the opening exchanges, before regaining pace and running confidently in second behind the short-fuelling #35 Alpine A424 piloted by Ferdinand Habsburg
Les Bleus elected to short-stint to seize track position, duly usurping the lead in the second hour but slipping down the order after Habsburg handed over to António Félix da Costa during the second stop after 1h45m of action
But there was disaster during the first pit-stop for initial leader Stevens, who lost around 15 seconds after a front-right wheel nut appeared to get stuck, costing the American Hypercar eight places
That drama forced Stevens into a superb recovery drive, in which he hunted down and overtook several rivals. These included the #8 Toyota driven by Brendon Hartley, #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P of Antonio Giovinazzi and the #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Yifei Ye. At two hours the #12 ran in second position behind the Magnussen driven BMW Hypercar
The highest placed Ferrari was the #83 entry as Yifei Ye fought back from a five-second stop and go penalty for a starting infringement to run third ahead of the #94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8 driven by Loic Duval in the opening two stints
Antonio Giovinazzi in the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P ran fifth after an action-packed first two hours. Several contacts were survived by the durable Ferrari although it was placed under investigation for a clash with the Martin Berry driven #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG LMGT3 just before the two hour mark
The recovering #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA car fought back in to the top six after losing time at its first stop due to being out of position on its pit entry
The #17 Genesis Magma GMR-001 ran seventh after surviving a significant clash with the #78 Toyota, while the pair of Aston Martin Valkyries placed eighth and ninth. The second of the Genesis Magma cars was 10th after being tipped off the track by the #54 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Flohr, who received a 10-second stop/go penalty for the incident
The #8 Toyota was forced to pit for repairs after contact first with the #009 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Marco Sorensen and then the #17 Genesis Magma Hypercar of Juncadella. Hartley rejoined at the tail of the field 13 laps down on the leader
A brief Full Course Yellow came after 70minutes of racing for debris on the track but other than that the race ran green
LMGT3
Proton Competition Ford Mustang star in the opening hours as the American muscle cars run 1-2 after forging to the front in a stunning display
Stefano Gattuso in the #88 car usurped Petru Ubrarescu in the #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus with a pass for the lead in to the Senna S corner after 30-minutes of racing
Eric Powell in the sister #77 Ford Mustang followed suit and the pair run 1-2 for the first 80 minutes of the race
After the first scheduled stop the Akkodis ASP Lexus re-takes the lead after short fuelling and Umbrarescu headed the #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette as the two hour mark arrived
At the beginning of the race polesitter Gray Newell appeared to misjudge the start and was swamped by the pack, allowing Umbrarescu in to the lead before the Ford’s attacked and went to the front
But the intra-team close racing between the Mustangs got contentious after 90 minutes when the pair made contact at the exit of the Senna S corner and Powell was forced to run wide and lost momentum
The race came back to the Proton Ford Mustangs after two hours as they ran 1-2, although the net lead was in fact in the hands of the Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette entry
This moved to the front between pit stops after a stellar double stint by Salih Yoluc, who then handed over to its bronze categorised driver, Peter Dempsey
The #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage of Ian James put in a pair of solid and un-eventful stints and came through to run second in category after two hours as James got ready to hand over to teammate Zacharie Robichon
Alexander West spun the #58 Garage59 McLaren just after making first pit stop but recovers to rejoin the race
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