Despite looking for an immediate explanation for such an off weekend for Toyota at the 6 Hours of S\u00e3o Paulo at Interlagos, Kamui Kobayashi has more questions than answers. After crossing the line in just 12th place during the Brazilian round of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) alongside Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway in the No. 7 car, the Japanese driver pointed to the GR010 Hybrid’s lack of performance, but was unable to explain what went wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Speaking to Sportscar365<\/em>, Kobayashi indicated that scoring points in S\u00e3o Paulo could have been possible, but lamented a drive-through penalty that put that goal out of reach. Nevertheless, he didn’t shy away from the biggest issue of the weekend: the lack of pace from the Japanese manufacturer’s LMH prototype.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe could have scored points, but with the drive-through, that wasn\u2019t possible. Without that penalty, I think we could have scored\u2014maybe not many, but enough. The biggest issue, though, was that we just didn’t have the pace,” Kobayashi explained.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Asked about the sudden drop in performance right after their victory at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Kobayashi was at a loss for words, recalling that the GR010 Hybrid was competitive in France even without being the outright fastest car on the grid. This time in S\u00e3o Paulo, despite doing everything within his power, the driver felt there was no way to reach the points-paying positions and secure a solid result.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf you have the answer, I want to know! At Le Mans, we were consistent even if we weren’t the fastest, but this time, honestly, we have no idea what happened. We had no chance. We simply lacked performance. I did everything I could. When I got into the car for the last two stints, we were already far away from the points. I feel I did my job as a driver, so I\u2019m not disappointed,\u201d Kobayashi concluded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For now, Toyota still leads the WEC Manufacturers’ World Championship with 132 points, but saw its advantage over second-placed BMW shrink to just 5 points following the round at Interlagos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After the 6 Hours of S\u00e3o Paulo\u2014won by the No. 15 BMW of Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello, and Dries Vanthoor\u2014the WEC returns on September 6 for the Lone Star Le Mans at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the midst of a battle for the 2026 WEC title against BMW, Kamui Kobayashi found his hands tied in S\u00e3o Paulo with a Toyota car that simply lacked pace.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1020310299,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"42wp_featured_image_caption":"Kamui Kobayashi lamentou falta de ritmo da Toyota nas 6 Horas de S\u00e3o Paulo","42wp_featured_image_credits":"DPPI","42wp_featured_video":"","42wp_ai_content_disclaimer":"","42wp_is_ai_content":false,"42wp_featured_image_hidden":false,"42wp_authors_list":[],"footnotes":"","42wp_hide_from_automatic":false,"42wp_breaking_news":false},"categories":[47],"tags":[51,102,103],"42wp_author":[48],"class_list":["post-181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wec","tag-6-hours-of-sao-paulo","tag-kamui-kobayashi","tag-toyota","42wp_author-giovani-danjo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=181"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/181\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1020310299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=181"},{"taxonomy":"42wp_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/42wp_author?post=181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}