– Cadillac can do it without Alex Lynn as well: Will Stevens drove the Cadillac #12 (Stevens/Nato; 1st) to the best time in the Hyperpole for the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo 2026 at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace in 1:23.041 minutes. Both Cadillac V-Series.R start from the front row, Jack Aitken was 0.048 seconds slower in the #38 (Bamber/Bourdais/Aitken; 2nd). (Result)
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The LMDh cars dominated the Hyperpole session, but the gaps were minimal. Victor Martins came within 0.067 seconds of the best time in the Alpine #36 (Makowiecki/Gounon/Martins; 3rd), but is only allowed to start from the second row. The same applies to the BMW #15 (Magnussen/Marciello/D. Vanthoor; 4th) of Dries Vanthoor.
Genesis had drawn attention in the second free practice with the first best time for the new Magma Racing project. How much of this is due to their own progress after an impressive start to the project and how much is due to the Balance of Performance (BoP) cannot be said, as the BoP is kept secret in the WEC 2026 season.
In the end, sixth place for Mathieu Jaminet in the Genesis #19 (Jaminet/Chatin/Juncadella) was perhaps even a small disappointment. The ex-Porsche driver missed the best time by exactly three tenths of a second. Ahead of him was the Alpine #35 (da Costa/Milesi/Habsburg; 5th). Alpine was very satisfied as they managed to get balance problems from the practice sessions under control in qualifying.
Update: The Genesis #19 was penalized by one grid place because Mathieu Jaminet blocked the BMW #20 (Frijns/Rast/S. van der Linde) of Sheldon van der Linde in qualifying. The South African did not get beyond the last place. Thus, the Ferrari #50 mentioned below benefits, inheriting the sixth starting position.
The four LMH cars that qualified for the Hyperpole all ended up at the end of the top 10. Antonio Fuoco was the fastest of the LMH faction in the Ferrari #50 (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen; 7th), followed by Malthe Jakobsen in the Peugeot #94 (Duval/Jakobsen/Pourchaire; 8th), Harry Tincknell in the Aston Martin #007 (Tincknell/Gamble; 9th), and Robert Kubica in the private AF-Corse Ferrari #83 (Ye/Kubica/Hanson; 10th).
The shortest track on the calendar required three preparation laps for the Hypercar drivers before the fast lap. The medium tires (Michelin brought medium and hard to Brazil) allowed for more than one attempt. Stevens’ pole lap came quite late, while Aitken set his fast lap much earlier.
The pole time from last year by Alex Lynn of 1:22.570 minutes was clearly missed. However, it was much cooler then than this time at 26 degrees Celsius and sunshine in the Brazilian winter.
Both Toyotas miss Hyperpole
After wins in Imola and Le Mans, it is not surprising that Toyota had a tough time in Sao Paulo. Toyota was the only manufacturer not to make it into the Hyperpole. It had already been indicated in the free practice sessions that the TR010 Hybrid was missing half to three-quarters of a second. They only managed 14th and 16th places.
Update: Kamui Kobayashi also received a penalty for impeding in the Hyperpole, which caused Mathieu Jaminet’s lock-up. The Toyota #7 (Conway/Kobayashi/de Vries) received a three-place penalty and will start from the last place in the Hypercar field.
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Due to the BoP gag order, Ryo Hirakawa only indirectly says what he thinks is the reason: “I would say my lap was quite clean and we maximized everything. That’s why it’s a shame we didn’t make the Hyperpole. I think that will be a challenge tomorrow.”
A big chance was missed by Luis Felipe “Pipo” Derani in the Genesis #17 (Lotterer/Derani/Jaubert; 12th), who first had a lap disallowed due to overboost and then lost the chance for the Hyperpole due to a heavy lock-up in Senna-S. The entire field remained within 0.739 seconds in the qualifying session.
However, the starting grid could become void if the weather forecast proves true. It has been massively revised for Sunday to include thunderstorms that could occur before or during the race. If it rains, the cards would be completely reshuffled.
Aston pole in LMGT3
Kobe Pauwels, who is actually only competing as a substitute for Eduardo “Dudu” Barrichello in the Heart-of-Racing Aston Martin #23 (Newell/Pauwels/Adam; 1st LMGT3) because the Brazilian gave preference to the IMSA SportsCar Championship at the Mosport track, sensationally took pole position in the GT class.
The 21-year-old was 0.199 seconds faster in the Hyperpole in 1:33.350 minutes than Lin Hodenius in the Iron-Lynx Mercedes-AMG #79 (Zelger/Cressoni/Hodenius; 2nd LMGT3). The time was half a second faster than Eduardo Barrichello’s pole last year, also in an Aston Martin.
The front-engine cars dominated the two qualifying sessions, but five different makes occupied the first five places. The ASP Lexus #87 (Umbrarescu/Schmid/Lopez; 3rd LMGT3) and the WRT BMW #69 (McIntosh/Thompson/Harper; 4th LMGT3) share the second row, followed by the Proton Ford #77 (Powell/Tuck/Priaulx; 5th LMGT3).
The Manthey Porsche #92 (Shahin/Pera/Lietz; 7th LMGT3) was the only car in the Hyperpole with the engine behind the driver. Should the rain come on Sunday, the Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3 would be among the favorites.
Both Ferraris and McLaren missed out on the Hyperpole. The ASP Lexus #78 (van Rompuy/David/Masson), which was strong in practice, also got stuck in the regular qualifying.
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The race starts on Sunday at 16:30 CEST, which corresponds to 11:30 local time. (All information about the WEC race in Sao Paulo 2026)
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