A year ago at Interlagos, Cadillac crossed the finish line first and second in the Hypercar class, the first time a U.S. manufacturer had pulled off a 1-2 in WEC. Now the team is coming back to see whether lightning strikes the same spot twice.
Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA heads to the Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo, round five of the FIA World Endurance Championship, with the same circuit, the same basic package, and a slightly reshuffled driver roster. The No. 12 V-Series.R will be shared by Norman Nato and Will Stevens, with Alex Lynn sitting out while recovering from surgery. Sebastien Bourdais joins Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber in the No. 38.
The 2.677-mile, 15-turn Autódromo José Carlos Pace is a circuit with a specific personality that Bourdais is candid about. Tire degradation is severe, and the altitude works against downforce levels in a way that makes the car skittier through corners than it would be at sea level. Last year the team found the right setup window and stayed in it cleanly enough to lead a 1-2 from pole. That kind of race management, not just outright pace, is what repeating will require.
The season so far has given the team plenty of pace to point to and not quite enough results to match it. At Le Mans, both cars ran at the front for significant stretches before falling just short of the podium. Bourdais puts it plainly: “We have a competitive package again this year, with strong pace at all races. The results just haven’t gone our way yet.” Bamber, whose Le Mans disappointment was audible, frames São Paulo as a chance at redemption. Aitken, who visited the circuit as an F1 reserve but never turned a lap in competition, is the one driver in the entry arriving without personal history at Interlagos. He is also arriving on the back of a team that went 1-2 here twelve months ago, which is its own kind of preparation.
Stevens and Nato, who shared the winning No. 12 car in 2025, have the clearest memory of what worked. Stevens calls it a track the team was “pretty dominant on” and sees no reason the same ingredients have gone away. Nato, who took pole last year, describes the podium celebration at sunset with the crowd still in the grandstands as something worth chasing again. Whether sentiment translates is another matter, but the underlying case, that the V-Series.R has genuine pace and that this particular circuit suits the Cadillac’s setup strengths, is not simply nostalgia.
Keely Bosn, Cadillac’s Racing Programme Manager, frames the 2025 Brazil win as more than a race result. It was the validation moment for a program that returned to WEC after a long absence and needed to prove it could beat Ferrari, Toyota, Porsche, and BMW on their own ground. That proof now lives in the record books. The 2026 São Paulo round is not about establishing credibility anymore. It is about converting demonstrated pace into points and wins at a circuit where Cadillac already knows it can execute.
The weekend schedule runs practice on Friday July 10, with a third session, qualifying, and the 10-minute Hyperpole session stacked on Saturday. The six-hour race starts at 11:30 a.m. local time Sunday, July 12.
One year after writing its name into the Hypercar class record books, Cadillac arrives at Interlagos not as a first-time winner looking for proof, but as a team that knows exactly what this circuit can give and has every reason to take it again.
Source: Cadillac. Images courtesy of Cadillac.
