Fuji Post-Race Notebook

***Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor became the first repeat race winners of the FIA World Endurance Championship season in Sunday’s penultimate race at Fuji Speedway, while also delivering Porsche its 20th overall win in the series.

***It marked Lotterer’s 12th career win and his first WEC victory in Japan, which the German calls his second home having spent much of his career racing in Super Formula and SUPER GT competition. Estre scored his 10th win, having previously triumphed at Fuji in GTE-Pro in 2018, while Vanthoor picked up his third.

***Sunday’s race was only the second time that brothers shared a WEC podium together. Laurens and Dries Vanthoor have joined Kirill and Anton Ladygin, who achieved the same feat in 2014 with SMP Racing in LMP2 competition.

***”Laurens said: It’s a little bit emotional. It’s a world championship. I’m not sure that happens very often. For the both of us it’s a career dream and I’m sure Dries will also win a race soon. Everyone at home, they’re all happy and I saw some with a tear in their eyes, so it’s definitely a special moment that all of us will remember for a long time.”

***Estre meanwhile revealed that fluid on his brake pedal led to the “scary” moment late in the race when he went wide into the Turn 1 runoff area, causing initial concern within the Porsche Penske camp.

***He said: “They don’t believe me but it was real. I think the A/C had a lot of condensed water and it went on the pedal, so I went braking for Turn 1 and I didn’t have the grip I wanted under my foot. It was a scary moment, but all good.”

***The No. 6 Porsche received a reprimand post-race for a tire pressure infringement, for which Porsche Penske managing director Jonathan Diuguid explained: “We were basically taking care of the car at the end and the pace slowed down, so the tire pressure dropped a little bit below the limit. But we told Kevin to push again and it went back up to the numbers so there was no issue.”

***Diuguid hailed the result a “massive points day” for the No. 6 crew, which also took Porsche back to the top of the manufacturers’ standings with one race remaining. “The 6 car executed perfectly today and did everything they needed to do,” he said. “All three drivers had amazing pace and took care of the car. It was just an amazing day.”

***When asked to comment on the race-ending incident between Matt Campbell’s No. 5 Porsche and the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi, Diuguid said: “[Kobayashi] was hoping for a lot coming from that far back.” Kobayashi was given a drive-through penalty suspended until the end of the season.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury said that the decision to retire the No. 7 Toyota was made once it became clear that the differential was broken after Kobayashi brought the damaged car back to the garage. “This would have taken too long to fix and it was too dangerous to go out with a broken differential,” he said.

***Floury added he was “amused to see more penalties for yellow flag infringements” at Fuji “than in the last four seasons combined”, which he feels is a consequence of Toyota’s complaints about Kobayashi’s penalty for ignoring yellow flags that cost the No. 7 crew a near-certain win at the Circuit of The Americas.

***Kobayashi told reporters post-race that he feels that had the virtual safety car and subsequent full safety car period prior to his crash been a full-course yellow, the sister No. 8 Toyota could have been on course to save its ‘splash’ and win the race.

***The Toyota driver/team principal said: “If it was a regular FCY, then the No. 8 car would have been able to get to the end with one less stop as planned and perhaps been in a position to win. Instead [with the safety car] it became a straightforward battle of performance, one that we would never have been able to win.”

***Peugeot Sport’s Olivier Jansonnie expressed satisfaction with the 9X8 2024’s best result since its introduction in fourth place with the No. 93 car of Mikkel Jensen, Nico Mueller and Jean-Eric Vergne, crediting the team’s decision to save tires for the end of the race. “We knew we had saved more tires than our direct competitors and that would give us more pace at the end of the race,” said Janssonie. “It required some sacrifices at the beginning of the race, but it was a good team effort.”

***He added: “Frankly, there was a bit of luck as well, but we have been very unlucky in some races. It’s so tight now and the gaps are so little, so this leads to crashes and sporting penalties which can change things a lot. It is definitely a boost. We have had some hard times with no results, especially Austin was very bad for us, but this time things aligned for us and our competitors made some mistakes.”

***Proton Competition’s No. 77 Ford Mustang GT3 was handed a one-minute time penalty for failing to respect the instructions of officials on pit road. The relevant stewards’ bulletin read: “When car 77 stopped in its working area, the team was instructed by the pit lane marshal that the back window of the car was missing and that it must be repaired before rejoining the track. The team did not follow the instructions and released the car.” The penalty did not impact the car’s finishing position of 15th.

***Vista AF Corse drivers Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci and Davide Rigon earned back-to-back GT class victories at Fuji following their GTE-Am triumph in a Ferrari 488 GTE Evo last year. Flohr and Castellacci now have three wins to their name, all of which have been taken at Fuji, as their first triumph came at the track in 2017.

***Ferrari factory driver Rigon has now won a WEC race in every class he has contested in (GTE-Pro, GTE-Am, LMGT3), with seven to his credit in total.

***Sunday’s victory marked the first win for the 296 GT3 in WEC competition, with Ferrari becoming the fourth different manufacturer in the class to win. Co-incidentally, the No. 54 car’s triumph marks Ferrari’s 54th win in the GT ranks of the WEC, and 57th in total when its overall wins with the 499P are included.

***The sister No. 55 Ferrari immediately dropped back from pole at the start of the race and finally finished in sixth, which Alessio Rovera revealed was down to a loss of ABS.

***Rovera told Sportscar365: “We did the whole race without ABS and it was not easy. It made the balance of the car completely different and gave us more tire degradation at the rear. Still, we only finished 20 seconds from the sister car that won the race, so without the problem, we could have been there [fighting for the win].”

***Nicolas Costa recalled the No. 59 United Autosports McLaren 720S GT3 Evo’s descent from first to eighth in the hands of co-driver Gregoire Saucy. It followed an unorthodox strategy that saw Bronze-rated driver James Cottingham make way for Costa after the opening stint before returning to the cockpit later to complete his drive time.

***Costa explained: “The safety car really hurt us. We double-stinted the final set of tires, so there was a big difference with the cars that had tires left. I had fresh tires, although they weren’t new, and I tried to take care of them as much as I could. I could have stayed in the car for the last stint [instead of making way for Saucy], but there’s no reason to believe I would have done a better job than Gregoire.”

***The Goodyear Wingfoot Award for the fastest average stint in LMGT3 went to TF Sport’s Charlie Eastwood, who brought home the No. 81 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R fourth, its best finish of the season, despite losing ground when he was hit by Charles Milesi’s Alpine Hypercar.

***Eastwood commented: “We were in a really good spot the whole race. Unfortunately a Hypercar missed his braking into the last corner and spun us around. He [Milesi] got a drive-through for it, but it was no real consolation to what it did to our race. A podium at a minimum and probably a win today got away through someone else’s mistake.”

***The sister No. 82 Corvette dropped ten laps off the lead early on with a starter motor issue, before retiring later on after suffering a loss of power.

***With one race to go, Team WRT’s Augusto Farfus continues to lead the Wingfoot standings on 76 points, ahead of AF Corse’s Rigon (68), Manthey EMA driver Morris Schuring (62), Heart of Racing’s Alex Riberas (61) and D’station Racing’s Marco Sorensen (57). The full standings can be viewed here.

***Six retirements in Hypercar marks the most this season outside of Le Mans, and indeed the highest-ever for the class in a regular WEC race.

***WEC organizers announced a three-day crowd figure of 65,800, marking the best-ever attendance for the 6H Fuji in 11 editions. The circuit itself also revealed a day-by-day breakdown, giving a race day figure of 40,400 fans, up from 33,600 last year.

***The WEC’s final race of the season, the 8 Hours of Bahrain, is scheduled for Oct. 31-Nov. 2, and will be followed by the series’ annual post-season rookie test on Nov. 3.

John Dagys contributed to this report