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Sao Paulo Thursday Notebook

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Photo: Andrea Lorenzina/DPPI ***Four weeks after the 24 Hours of Le Mans, FIA World Endurance Championship teams and drivers trekked across to the other side of the world for the fourth round of the season at Interlagos. It is the final event before the series’ summer break and the first of the campaign to be held outside Europe following the postponement of the planned Qatar opener. ***However, three drivers have not made that trip to South America with Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA opting to field a two-driver lineup in Brazil without Louis Deletraz . Instead, Deletraz, who was the third driver in the No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R at Le Mans, is representing the team and manufacturer at this weekend’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, taking one of the team’s Hypercar class entries up the hill. Fellow GM factory driver Ricky Taylor held the honor of doing so last year but is on IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship duty at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in a LMP2 car. ***This weekend marks th...

CTMP Thursday Notebook

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Photo: CTMP ***The field for this weekend’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park is down to 32 cars after the No. 37 Intersport Oreca 07 Gibson has been a no-show. While there’s been no official statement on the team’s withdrawal, the Jon Field-owned squad sustained multiple incidents in last month’s Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen and was an early retirement. Additionally, the pre-event entry list did not include Field’s full season co-driver Oliver Jarvis. ***It means there will be nine Pro-Am-enforced prototypes in the third running of the LMP2 headline race for the class, along with ten GTD Pro cars and 13 GTD entries. Click Here for the official entry list. ***The clashing FIA World Endurance Championship round in Sao Paulo has resulted in minimal changes to the entry list, largely due to the lack of GTP class machinery at Mosport. Aston Martin factory driver Harry Tincknell has been replaced by Ricky Taylor in the No. 52 Bry...

Rast: BMW Drivers, WRT “Raised Our Game” This Year

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Photo: Charly López/DPPI Rene Rast believes the BMW Hypercar drivers and the WRT squad have “raised our game” in the FIA World Endurance Championship this season as the German manufacturer sits second in both the drivers’ and manufacturers’ standings. The BMW M Hybrid V8 achieved its first WEC victory thanks to Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde in the No. 20 car leading home the sister WRT machine at Spa, before then following that up with a strong second place in the 24 Hours of Le Mans last month. Rast said “you couldn’t expect that” upturn in performance before the start of the season and believes the updated Evo package has undoubtedly played a significant part in BMW’s improvement, but has also highlighted other factors. “The Evo package for sure is the biggest part of it but also I think we as drivers are on a better level compared to the last years,” he told Sportscar365. “The last years you could ...

Pfaff Temerario GT3 Making ‘Progress’ Despite No Cross-Over

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Photo: Pfaff Motorsports Andrea Caldarelli believes Pfaff Motorsports and Lamborghini are continuing to make progress with the new Temerario GT3, despite their IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship car currently being one-of-a-kind due to a large disparity in technical specifications to the Temerario GT3s competing in Europe. While Caldarelli and co-driver Sandy Mitchell claimed a rather surprising runner-up finish in GTD Pro on the streets of Detroit, the V8 twin-turbo-powered car’s next-best class finish so far this season has been a fifth at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca. Yet the Lamborghini factory driver insists that the best is still yet to come with the new-for-2026 package. “We’ve definitely done big progress, I think,” said Caldarelli. “Detroit, even though it was a chaotic race, I do feel that we belonged there and we were fighting, realistically, for the podium. I think it was very encouraging. “However, I think the thing we missed is ...

Wickens Hoping to “Finally Give” DXDT First GTD Podium in CTMP

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Photo: Corvette Racing Robert Wickens said he’s hoping to help “finally give” DXDT Racing its first IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship podium finish in his return to the wheel of the team’s Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R entry in this weekend’s Chevrolet Grand Prix at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park. Wickens and full season co-driver Mason Filippi were left on the sidelines in the most recent WeatherTech Championship GTD sprint round at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca when DXDT’s transporter suffered a catastrophic fire en route to Monterey. It resulted in a near total-loss for the David Askew-owned team , which has been forced to re-purpose its SRO America Corvette chassis and returned to competition the Sahlen’s Six Hours of The Glen two weeks ago. “It’s been a lot of work from the team to get ready,” said Wickens. “They ran the six-hour at The Glen with a new car, a different transporter, different pit equipment and e...

Nato Eyes Payback for “Painful” Le Mans Finish in Brazil

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Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI Cadillac driver Norman Nato says he’s eyeing another FIA World Endurance Championship victory in Sao Paulo this weekend, as he and Hertz Team JOTA co-driver Will Stevens aim to avenge a disappointing conclusion to the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Nato and Stevens, together with Louis Deletraz, ended up fourth in the WEC blue riband event last month aboard the No. 12 Cadillac V-Series.R after losing out in a late full-course yellow, with Toyota coming away with victory. Now the American manufacturer’s focus turns to repeating its maiden series win that it took in last year’s 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, which it did in dominant style. Nato, who was part of the No. 12 crew that won in Brazil last year with Stevens and the now-injured Alex Lynn, says he’s hoping for a chance to atone for the “painful” experience of just missing out on a podium finish at the Circuit de la Sarthe. “I have such good memories of last year, it was suc...

Doonan Provides Update on IMSA Labs

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Source: Sports Car 365