WEC São Paulo: Cadillac penalty shakes up starting grid

Cadillac has lost its front-row lock-out for this weekend’s Interlagos round of the World Endurance Championship for an on-track infringement.

Sébastien Bourdais, who ended up second in the Hyperpole session to Jota Cadillac team-mate Alex Lynn, has been docked one grid position for impeding another car. This occurred during the opening period of qualifying, after which the top 10 cars go through to the final shoot-out.

Bourdais in the #38 Cadillac V-Series.R LMDh was judged to have impeded the #93 Peugeot 9X8 2024 Le Mans Hypercar driven by Paul di Resta in Turn 12 during the 12-minute session at the Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace.

#93 Peugeot Totalenergies Peugeot 9X8: Paul Di Resta, Mikkel Jensen

Photo by: FIAWEC - DPPI

The stewards concluded after reviewing video evidence that while Bourdais’s actions were not deliberate, they still constituted the offence of impeding.

“The driver of #38 was in a position to move aside before the braking zone at Turn 12 and should have done so to allow #93 to pass,” they stated in the bulletin confirming the penalty.

The infringement was adjudged to be a breach of Appendix L of the FIA International Sporting Code. Jota and Cadillac have no right of appeal under the ISC.

A loss of one grid position for Bourdais means that the factory Penske-run Porsche 963 LMDh qualified by Julien Andlauer will move up from third to start on the front row alongside Lynn.

Bourdais will now line up on the grid alongside the #94 Peugeot in which Malthe Jakobsen, took fourth position in the times during the 10-minute Hyperpole session.

It would have been a second consecutive front-row lock-out for Jota, Cadillac’s factory representative in the WEC, following on from the Le Mans 24 Hours in June.

Lynn took pole position for the double points round of the WEC, while Earl Bamber claimed second position in the sister Caddy. The Briton’s qualifying performance in Brazil means that he now has three Hypercar class positions in the WEC, the first coming at Fuji in Japan last September when the Cadillac factory programme as run by Chip Ganassi Racing.

The Sao Paulo 6 Hours, round five of the 2025 WEC, begins at 11:30 local time on Sunday.