Toyota’s streak of six consecutive WEC race wins on home soil was snapped today at Fuji Speedway, after the No. 6 Porsche 963 claimed an emphatic victory in a drama-filled six hours.
For points leaders Laurens Vanthoor, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre, a methodical run to the lead from fifth on the grid was enough to seal their second win of the season and first since the opening round at Qatar. More importantly, though, the performance was critical for their title challenge.
It has put them in an almost insurmountable position in the Hypercar drivers’ world championship and handed Porsche the lead back in the manufacturers’ title race. In the drivers’ ranking, the No. 6 trio’s lead has ballooned to 35 points ahead of the finale in November, where 39 points are on offer.
Their rivals in the No. 50 Ferrari came home a lowly ninth after struggling for pace and losing key positions in the closing stages and the No. 7 Toyota retired with suspension damage. A high-speed collision for Kamui Kobayashi with the No. 5 Porsche at Turn 3 in the penultimate hour ended the title hopes for himself and Nyck de Vries.
“It was an amazing team effort, it’s been a fantastic weekend with so much support and energy for the fans,” said Lotterer. “I always wanted to win this — it’s like a home race. For the championship, it’s also very good.”
Elsewhere, this race served as another marker of progress for BMW and Alpine after their standout performances at COTA two weeks ago.
Behind the winning Porsche, the No. 15 BMW M Team WRT M Hybrid V8 took second. Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Marco Wittmann in the No. 15 ran a perfect race from second on the grid and were rewarded with their best finish of the season, crossing the line 11 seconds back from the winning 963.
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The No. 36 Alpine A424 eventually finished third after the battle for the final podium place went down to the wire, as multiple penalties and door-to-door battles with time expiring changed the running order in the top five multiple times.
At first, Alpine’s sister car looked set to claim the French brand’s first podium of the year before it was penalized for contact, dropping the car to seventh. The No. 8 Toyota then inherited the place, but it too was handed a drive-through in the closing laps for ignoring blue flags and battling with the lead Porsche.
This left the No. 12 JOTA Porsche and No. 36 Alpine to duke it out for the set of trophies. Norman Nato in the No. 12 and Mick Schumacher in the No. 36 went at it hammer and tongs, with Schumacher making his final move up the inside at the final corner with seven minutes remaining.
Nato then lost another place to Mikkel Jensen, who in the No. 93 Peugeot, emerged as one of the fastest drivers on track in the closing laps and almost nabbed a shock podium.
Before a safety car was called with 80 minutes remaining to recover the Lamborghini SC63, which stopped on track with a gearbox issue, this year’s WEC race at Fuji was extremely tough to read. The running order shuffled frequently through the first four hours as teams ran through various pit and tire strategies to set themselves up for the end.
For the 56,000 fans trackside, though, it was an absorbing contest. Seven of the eight Hypercar factory teams led a lap and the top 10 cars finished on the lead lap by the end after the safety car bunched the field up and created a frantic finale.
A race this eventful was always going to leave a number of teams frustrated and disappointed. The No. 51 Ferrari crew’s race was a disaster and added to what turned into a forgettable race day for the factory team. James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi spent most of the race nursing a damaged car before it was retired after 168 laps with an energy recovery system issue. The COTA-winning No. 83 privately funded 499P also struggled and finished 12th.
Both cars hit trouble on the second lap of the race, when Robert Kubica in the No. 83 locked up and caused a chain reaction by rear-ending the No. 5 Porsche, which in turn cannoned into the No. 51 and No. 35 Alpine.
The damage sustained wasn’t terminal for any of the cars involved, but it did end the No. 5, No. 51 and No. 83’s chances of a strong finish immediately as they were forced to pit for repairs and in the case of the No. 83, serve a penalty for causing the collision. The No. 83 would be the only one of the three to make the finish as the No. 5 eventually retired after its contact with the No. 7 Toyota.
It was a disastrous race for the pole-sitters at Cadillac Racing in the end too. The U.S.-flagged team’s hopes of a breakthrough win were dashed during the third hour of the race, when Earl Bamber and Raffaele Marciello came together while battling for third place.
The contact between the two wasn’t heavy, but Marciello’s dive up the inside was enough to cause a front-right puncture on the No. 2, forcing Bamber to limp back to the pits for a quick swap which dropped the car to 13th.
Bamber and Lynn battled to salvage a result, but the car ended up being withdrawn from the race when Bamber hit the barriers head-on after losing control of the car on the marbles while fighting through traffic.
Lamborghini Iron Lynx’s SC63 also suffered misfortune on Sunday after an impressive Saturday. Daniil Kvyat, who snuck the car into Hyperpole for the first time, suffered a terminal gearbox issue in the penultimate hour while battling for a points-paying position.
In LMGT3, a spirited drive from Davide Rigon late in the race saw the No. 54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 claim the Italian brand’s first LMGT3 win (and podium) of the season.
“I am so happy, all season we deserved a good result and today we made it. We prepared the car well to double stint tires,” Rigon said after claiming a second win in a row at Fuji for himself, Thomas Flohr and Francesco Castellacci.
However, the biggest story in the class concerned Pure Rxcing, which took the drivers’ and teams’ titles in fine style with a second-place finish; the team’s sixth trip to the podium in seven races.
The Lithuanian-flagged Porsche, driven by Alex Malykhin, Joel Sturm and Klaus Bachler, didn’t have the ultimate pace throughout the weekend (in part due to it carrying 40kg of success ballast) and spent most of the race outside the top five after starting 14th, conserving tires for late in the race. But the team benefitted from the late-race safety car that was called to recover the stranded Lamborghini SC636 and set up a sprint finish.
The race was neutralized just as the car had cycled through to the lead just before its penultimate stop. This meant the team retained track position after visiting the pit lane, enabling Bachler to execute a controlled run to second, ahead of the No. 46 WRT BMW M4 GT3.
United Autosports came achingly close to claiming a first WEC win for McLaren with its No. 59 GT3 EVO, but Gregoire Saucy would relinquish the lead in the final hour and drop like a stone to eighth after being passed by the winning Ferrari, the Pure Rxcing Porsche and No. 46 WRT BMW and four other cars in the dash to the flag.
Elsewhere, the sister Manthey EMA Porsche’s title chances were put to bed with a late-race puncture, the No. 31 WRT BMW could only manage P10 and the Heart of Racing Aston Martin – which was the quickest of the title-contending cars throughout the meeting – eventually finished ninth.
The pole-sitting No. 55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari was another car that struggled through the race. It was classified sixth after Simon Mann, Francois Heriau and Alessio Rovera were forced to complete the entire race without ABS due to a sensor failure at the start.
Next up is the season finale in Bahrain on Nov. 2.