The World Endurance Championship’s first long-haul trip of 2026 begins this weekend, and the 6 Hours of São Paulo arrives carrying a quirk of history: the last four WEC races at Interlagos have been won by four different manufacturers, and no circuit in the championship’s history has ever produced five different winners in a row. Round four of the season could make Brazil the first.
A 35-car field. 17 Hypercars and 18 LMGT3 entries takes on the 4.309km Autódromo José Carlos Pace, with free practice on Friday, qualifying and Hyperpole on Saturday, and the race starting at 11:30 local time (15:30 UK) on Sunday. Almost 85,000 fans packed the venue last year, the third-highest attendance of the season.
Can anyone stop Toyota at Interlagos?
Toyota Gazoo Racing arrives on top of the Hypercar standings after the #7 TR010 Hybrid’s victory in last month’s Le Mans 24 Hours, and the record books lean its way in Brazil too. The Japanese marque took its breakthrough WEC win at Interlagos in 2012 and remains the only manufacturer to have won the race more than once.
There is a personal milestone in the #7 garage as well. Mike Conway will become only the third driver to reach 90 WEC appearances this weekend, joining team-mate Sébastien Buemi and GT veteran Richard Lietz in that club. Plus Conway, Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa are all previous São Paulo winners.
Why Cadillac’s title defence is down to two drivers
Cadillac dominated last year’s race, its one-two with JOTA delivering the American brand’s maiden WEC victory and making Will Stevens and Norman Nato winners on every continent the series has visited. The V-Series.R also holds the Hypercar lap record at Interlagos in both qualifying and race trim.
This time, though, the #12 crew tackles the six hours as a two-driver pairing. RACER reports that Alex Lynn remains sidelined by a neck injury, leaving Stevens and Nato to share the load. Cadillac has not returned to the podium since that Brazilian breakthrough, with fourth at Le Mans its best result since.
Where do BMW and Ferrari fit in the title fight?
For the first time in WEC history, three different crews have led the top-class standings across the opening three rounds of a season. One of them was BMW’s #20 trio of René Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde, who headed a one-two at Spa the manufacturer’s first outright win in global endurance racing in almost 27 years. Before finishing runner-up at Le Mans.
Ferrari’s story is the reverse. São Paulo 2025 was where its early-season dominance stopped, the 499P has not won a race since, and it has never finished higher than fifth in Brazil. With Porsche’s long-term Hypercar future still an open question, Maranello’s need to reassert itself in the class is growing sharper by the round.
What makes the 6 Hours of São Paulo such a tough test?
The 15-turn anticlockwise lap is the shortest of the season, run at nearly 800 metres above sea level, with Hypercars touching around 305km/h and roughly half the lap spent at full throttle. Elevation change and thin air punish cars and drivers alike, which is partly why the winners’ list keeps churning.
In LMGT3, TF Sport’s Le Mans class-winning Corvette squad arrives at the head of the standings, with Nico Varrone deputising for the IMSA-committed Nicky Catsburg in the #33. Home attention will split between BMW’s Augusto Farfus and Pipo Derani, whose home Genesis outing is a story in itself.
The ReadMotorSport.com Fan Verdict
Toyota is the form pick, but Interlagos has made a habit of refusing repeats, and Cadillac’s record here is too strong to ignore. A fifth different winner in five Brazilian races feels less like a long shot than a continuation — and in a Hypercar class deep enough that single-seater stars keep queueing to join it, that unpredictability is exactly the point.
