Eastwood Feared Puncture Could Deny Corvette Sao Paulo Win

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

Charlie Eastwood was concerned a slow puncture suffered in the penultimate hour of the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo FIA World Endurance Championship event could derail the TF Sport squad from securing a second successive LMGT3 victory.

Eastwood triumphed alongside Salih Yoluc and Peter Dempsey at the wheel of the No. 34 Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R but endured a more tense conclusion to the race than expected.

Strong stints from Yoluc and Dempsey had guided the car from tenth on the grid into the class lead, before Eastwood took to the wheel in third.

He was able to find his way past both the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Riccardo Pera and the No. 69 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Dan Harper but it was not a straightforward final stint to the flag.

“We came out behind the Porsche and BMW, but we knew we had a fuel advantage at the stop because obviously we were able to extend with Peter because his pace was so strong, which was great,” said Eastwood of when he initially climbed aboard.

“So, we got up to the back of both Harper and Pera, and then in the battle with Harper we actually got a puncture.

“Luckily, the valve basically bent inward and we didn’t actually completely deflate the tire.

“But that meant we had to stop on the hour and we actually had to stop before the BMW so, all of a sudden, we went from thinking we were very comfortable to having to sort of push on.

“But once we got into the last part of the stint, I was able to just try and manage the gap to the BMW behind.”

Eastwood eventually finished just over eight seconds ahead of the BMW and praised the role of his teammates in the victory, describing the performances of both Dempsey and Yoluc as being “their best in this year by far.”

The result marked a second successive victory for the TF Sport outfit after the sister No. 33 Corvette triumphed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans last time out.

Thompson Delighted With Unexpected BMW Podium

While the Corvette crew were delighted with their triumph, WRT BMW drivers Harper, Parker Thompson and Anthony McIntosh were also pleased to finish second at a circuit that had not previously been kind to the German car.

Thompson admitted he was “probably just as shocked as a lot of people” by the result and praised the way in which the WRT team worked to improve the car from “being at the bottom of the field” in Friday practice to fighting for LMGT3 victory.

“The BMW M4 GT3, while it’s a fantastic car, it’s not known for its Brazilian endeavors so the fact we made it to the podium and not just the podium but solidly in second with a sniff of the win is pretty incredible,” Thompson told Sportscar365.

“My hats off to Team WRT and BMW. They made some giant changes overnight from FP2 into qualifying and it seemed to help our car a lot.”

Thompson said the squad “turned the car upside down” but was not convinced such radical changes would pay dividends.

“We went from one setup on the far left to another setup on the far right,” he explained. “As a driver that’s probably worked about five percent of times in my career.

“You usually come to a race track after a night like that and still think you’re going to have a tough go at this.

“I think the drivers played a huge role today. Tony did a phenomenal job managing the tires, I got in and had a very specific strategy — 40 laps on a stint is a lot of time on the tires.

“The stints were about an hour and ten minutes, which was longer than normal so you really had to take care of those Goodyears — I think that was the key to our podium.”

Source: Sports Car 365