Hypercar Battle – Hypercar Performance
LMGT3 Battle – LMGT3 Performance
Class Closeness
Lap Chart
Practice and race positions, retirements, race distance, and the song can be found on the hourly positions page.
The Battle – Hypercar
#5 Porsche stole a march at the beginning of the race and for the first half of the race the gap between the top three never exceeded 25 seconds. Then Lynn, during his final stint, slowly eked out a 50 second lead, which Nato maintained to the end of the race.
As with most cars we see the fastest times early in the race. Conditions were good and there was less traffic in the first few laps.
Contrast that to the Porsche two driver approach. There is also a hint at this race Porsche suffered a little more tyre degradation.
Relative Performance– Hypercar
The good old Top 10 and Top 60%.
- We see 0.2-0.4s variation across team mates with a lot of teams. Except Toyota which was very close, and slowest.
- Proton is about 0.45s behind Penske.
- The whole field is covered by 1.6s. This is, in the current era, a disaster.
Sectors
#12 had the speed in all three sectors. Peugeot featuring higher in S1 and S3. Toyota, not so much.
Aston showing its acceleration out of slow corners as it did at Le Mans.
Speed Trap
It is possible that this data is influenced by lift and coast.
Drivers
Will Stevens’ stint at the beginning of the race wins in most averages, but Andlauer was quick and did a mammoth 162 laps, but helped him with the Top 60 average.
Most of the Cadillac drivers are up there, with #12 consistently ahead of #38. Button commented that he was very happy with the pace, but they had to work hard to get a good set-up, especially on the #38 car. #38 did not have the speed of #12.
The Battle – LMGT3
With apologises to Barrichello here is the battle between #87 Lexus, #81 Corvette and #85 Porsche.
The Lexus built up a strong lead, but with driver changes later in the race was losing out. Iron Dames was getting close, but an infraction for a FCY misdemeanor set it back.
Here we can see the relative pace of the drivers (and tyres).
Relative Performance– LMGT3
About 1s across the field.
The early domination of Lexus tricked people a little here. The pace of Barrichello at the end help drag that car up into the top spot for the Top 60% averages. Iron Dames’ pace was obvious on track when it was catching the lead Lexus.
The variation in drivers is greater than the variation in the cars.
Sectors
Lexus was strong in S1 and S3, not as strong in the longer S2.
Speed Trap
There was more variation in GT during the race compared to practice.
Drivers
There is that epic drive from Barrichello. Most laps and good times. Lopez, grabbed the top 60 average and helped steer that car to the win.
How close was it for both classes?
Another terrible race in this golden age of sportscar racing. It speaks wonders to the professionalism of the teams that they keep it so consistent, and also to the drivers who, mostly, all perform at a higher standard.
It should be remembered that São Paulo is a relatively short track, so these are of the order of 0.5% standard deviation in lap times.
