The battle for the 2025 Hypercar World Endurance drivers’ championship has tightened up after last Sunday’s 6 Hours of São Paulo, and looks set to produce its fair share of drama in the final three rounds of the season.
The No. 51 Ferrari-AF Corse crew’s lead has shrunk to 12 points over the No. 83 Le Mans-winning AF Corse drivers with five of the eight races now in the books.
Alessandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi and James Calado struggled for pace all weekend in Brazil and crossed the finish line just outside the points in 11th on Sunday. Meanwhile, the No. 83 trio of Phil Hanson, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye followed up their Le Mans victory with an eighth-place finish at Interlagos.
The No. 51 Ferrari crew still lead, but their margin is shrinking. Fabrizio Boldoni/DPPI
That points haul may prove critical when all is said and done at the end of the season, as it has solidified second place in the drivers’ standings and handed them a whopping 64-point advantage over Proton Competition’s 963 in the Hypercar World Cup, too.
“It’s a successful weekend from that respect,” Hanson said to RACER post-race. “Whenever you feel like you don’t have the performance to fight at the front, you have to look at what’s possible. The objective was to score as many points as we could. We maximized it, punched a little bit above our weight, finishing ahead of cars that were faster but made mistakes.
“We were strong on tire stints and longevity, which has never been this car’s strength, so we leave satisfied. It’s a long road ahead.”
Meanwhile, the No. 50 crew of Nicklas Nielsen, Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuoco’s title chances were dealt another blow. Following their disqualification from Le Mans, they also failed to score points in São Paulo, and as a result, have slipped to fourth behind the resurgent No. 12 Cadillac crew, who won the race.
“Overall, we did our best. I think with the conditions, the maximum we could do was a top 10, but unfortunately, we got hit by a GT (No. 33 Corvette) and got penalized for this (forced to come in to change the rear end of the car),” a frustrated Fuoco told RACER.
“What happened was not nice or fun for us. Before the incident, Nicklas was close to the No. 83 and closing the gap; if we had no contact, we could have finished in the top nine.
“I just hope going forward, they can allow us to fight. If we go to the rest of the races like this it will be tough.”
Norman Nato, Will Stevens and Alex Lynn, who have scored points in each race so far and took a handsome haul of 26 points away from Brazil, now have 68 on the board. That means they are 37 points off the No. 51 drivers with a maximum score of 91 points still available. By comparison, the No. 50 drivers are 48 points adrift.
There’s been a change in the Hypercar manufacturers’ championship, too, with Cadillac rising to second off the back of its 1-2 finish with Hertz Team JOTA. Ferrari’s lead is still commanding, though, 55 points strong even with just three points scored on the weekend.
Cadillac has 120 points, Porsche is third with 111, and Toyota is down to fourth with 95 after its first non-score of the year.
In LMGT3, with eight points scored by Manthey 1st Phorm’s Le Mans-winning drivers, Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera, and Ryan Hardwick’s lead has swelled to 13 points due to the No. 21 Vista AF Corse crew’s failure to score a point.
TF Sport’s Jonny Edgar, Ben Keating and Daniel Juncadella, meanwhile, remain third with their seventh-place finish in class with their No. 33 Corvette and have closed the gap to the No. 21 Ferrari drivers to 10 points. They head to Lone Star Le Mans for Corvette and Ben Keating’s home race in September, 23 points back from the leading crew and still very much in the fight.
“It was a tough day for us with some penalties that hurt our race,” Edgar admitted. “But the car felt great to drive, and I am happy we still scored some points for the championship.
“The whole team did a great job all weekend, like they always do. We will take these points and move to COTA and try to move back up in the championship.”
HYPERCAR DRIVERS’ STANDINGS
HYPERCAR MANUFACTURERS’ STANDINGS
LMGT3 DRIVERS’ STANDINGS
LMGT3 TEAMS’ STANDINGS
