The FIA World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar title battles resume at Fuji this weekend, two weeks on from AF Corse’s dramatic victory with the privately-funded No. 83 499P at Circuit of The Americas’ Lone Star Le Mans on Labor Day weekend. And while Ferrari and Porsche both head into the seventh race of the season with high hopes, they are under no illusions that beating Toyota on home soil will be anything other than a tall order.
Toyota’s WEC record is near perfect at the Fuji Speedway, with nine wins in 10 races. The only exception came back in 2015 when Porsche won with its 919.
While some of its victories over the years came while racing in a lean top-class, it demonstrated last year — after Porsche led the opening hours of the race with its No. 6 963 — that even with stiff opposition the Toyota team is capable of orchestrating a formation finish on Sunday evening. The million-dollar question ahead of the race is therefore whether or not Toyota will prove to be the safe bet once again.
The season hasn’t been a stroll in the park for Toyota like it was at times in 2023, but its GR010 HYBRIDs have progressed through the season nicely after a tough start to the campaign in Qatar, where an out-of-character performance saw them fighting in the mid-pack.
Since challenging for victory but ultimately coming up short again at Le Mans back in June, Toyota has hit fine form. The No. 8’s race-winning run in Brazil in July looked comfortable and a second win in a row looked odds-on at COTA earlier this month before the No. 7 was penalized in the closing stages while leading and fell to second.
The result? For the first time in 2024 Toyota heads into a race weekend leading the Hypercar manufacturers’ world championship and if Sunday goes to plan it has every chance of traveling to the season finale with the upper hand in the drivers’ title race too.
The overarching narrative in Hypercar during the first half of the season centered around Porsche’s turnaround and Ferrari’s second fairytale run at Le Mans. Now, it seems, the script has been flipped. With titles on the line, the most experienced and successful team in the class is once again firing on all cylinders.
Despite all this, Toyota’s team director Rob Leupen told RACER that the team is proceeding with caution this weekend. Extending its win streak in Japan, he stressed, is likely to be tougher than ever.
“Three teams are fighting for the championship. And for us, it will be tough to know where we are until Sunday. In Austin, we struggled in qualifying but the race went much better than expected, like São Paulo,” he explained. “We will need to fight because we have seen Porsche strong here last year. Here we are the team to beat, but it will be a hard and close fight.”
Nailing the tire strategy, as ever, will be crucial — especially if it stays dry on Sunday and both the Michelin medium and hard compounds prove useful. Qualifying well may be more of a priority than usual too, as overtaking on Fuji Speedway is notoriously tough, particularly in Sectors 2 and 3 where opportunities to pass even the slower GT cars are limited.
While Alpine, Cadillac and BMW are tipped to be in the mix on Sunday, Toyota will remain focused on beating Porsche and Ferrari.
Penske’s No. 6 963 of Laurens Vanthoor, Andre Lotterer and Kevin Estre finished on the podium last year in Japan and all three are keen to bounce back and prevent their slim 12-point lead from shrinking further before Bahrain.
“This is one of the tracks that suits our car better, which is good because it’s an important race to do well,” Lotterer told RACER. “I haven’t thought too much about the title before this weekend because you need to take it race-by-race.
“We’ve been strong and consistent and found ways to extract the maximum out of our package, especially in the last two races when we lacked speed. Ultimately, whether or not the title race is on your mind the task doesn’t change.”
Ferrari’s 499 struggled for outright pace at Fuji 12 months ago, but on the face of it, there’s reason to believe that its second visit may yield better results. The recent Joker update — focused on brake cooling and aero efficiency — was originally expected to be most effective here and in Bahrain. However, the mood within the camp is not as positive as you may expect.
“It’s clear already after FP1 that this is going to be a tough weekend for us. I don’t expect the Joker change to make a big difference,” No. 50 driver Antonio Fuoco told RACER. “We should be OK for the top 10 for qualifying but I think it’s going to be a long race. It’s a matter of staying out of trouble and doing the best we can in a very deep field.”
Securing the manufacturers’ title is Toyota’s number one priority, but with the No. 7 full-season duo of Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries firmly in the fight for drivers’ honors, Leupen admits that team orders may be required between its two crews to ensure it is best positioned to claim both championships in November.
“The No. 7 will get more support to secure points if they are in the position to continue to fight for the championship,” he said. “It’s important. But if anything happens then we will push the No. 8. It’s a team effort and we will work with both cars because they need to support each other.”