Fuji Post-Race Notebook

***Alpine scored its third outright victory in the FIA World Endurance Championship on Sunday at Fuji, with its previous victories having come in 2022 with the grandfathered A480 LMP1 car. The Renault-owned brand also became only the third different marque to win a WEC race outright at the Japanese track after Toyota and Porsche.

***As well as being a third win for an LMDh car in a row, it also marked the first time an ORECA-chassied LMDh car has triumphed in the WEC, with previous LMDh wins having come with either Multimatic (Porsche) or Dallara (Cadillac) chassis.

***For Paul-Loup Chatin, it marked a second WEC win, with his only previous triumph having come for the Signatech Alpine LMP2 team back in 2015. Charles Milesi picked up a fourth win, and his first since the Bahrain finale in 2021, while Ferdinand Habsburg scored his fifth win and his first since the 2022 Monza round. Habsburg also becomes only the second Austrian driver to score an overall win after Alexander Wurz.

***Curiously, the No. 35 crew’s victory also marks the first time a lineup comprising only Gold-rated drivers have taken an overall win in the WEC.

***Habsburg was adamant he was not to blame for the Turn 3 clash with Sebastien Buemi’s Toyota in the first stint of the race that left the No. 8 car with a puncture and eventually landed the No. 35 car an early five-second stop-and-go penalty. The stewards determined that Habsburg “misjudged the situation”, according to the relevant bulletin.

***Habsburg told Sportscar365: “I had more pace and he was being a bit overly aggressive in his defending. I had a better run to Turn 3, and I went on the inside and he turned in on me. I would like to see some data to see if he was turning when he was braking, because if that was the case, the penalty was unjust.”

***For his part, Buemi said: “I thought I was not at fault, and he got a penalty. We had to make an emergency stop [under FCY] and we made a big mistake, getting a three-minute stop-and-go penalty. We used the rest of the race to try to learn as much as we could Bahrain, and hopefully we’ll have a bit more luck and we can fight for the win there.”

***TF Sport’s victory in the LMGT3 class with its No. 81 car marks a tenth for Corvette as a manufacturer across all classes, with the American brand now having scored multiple wins in GTE-Pro, GTE-Am and LMGT3.

***Tom van Rompuy becomes only the fifth Belgian to score a class win after Dries and Laurens Vanthoor, Maxime Martin and Sarah Bovy. Charlie Eastwood and Rui Andrade both scored their fifth victories, with Eastwood joining Pedro Lamy and Ben Keating in an exclusive club of drivers to win in both Aston Martin and Corvette machinery.

***Second place marks Peugeot’s best finish to date with the 9X8, which had previously finished third on three occasions (Monza 2023, Bahrain 2024, COTA 2025).

***The brand’s technical boss Olivier Jansonnie took a magnanimous view on the No. 93 car’s narrow defeat to Alpine, admitting both the top two cars benefitted significantly from the final FCY and safety car period. “We could have won for sure,” Jansonnie told reporters. “But it’s part of racing. We got partially lucky and they got fully lucky. Alpine did a very good last stint and there was nothing we could do to catch them.”

***Jansonnie described taking four new tires at the No. 93 car’s final pit stop as a “no-brainer” even though the time loss on pit lane allowed the No. 35 Alpine into a lead it would never lose. “We thought about [changing two tires], but with the data we had collected in free practice and in the race so far, we thought this wouldn’t work,” he said.

***Reflecting on an overall result that initially featured two Peugeots in the top five, before the No. 94 car dropped to tenth due to a penalty for passing the safety car, Jansonnie said: “What needs to be taken from all of this is the momentum we had since Sao Paulo, three races in a row we’ve been strong. You always have missed opportunities, but if you asked on Friday, I would have taken P2 and P5.”

***With just a single manufacturers’ point scored at Fuji, Ferrari takes a reduced advantage of 39 points over Porsche into the final round of the season in Bahrain, with 66 points on offer in the title-decider. Cadillac also remains in mathematical contention, with a 61-point deficit to the Prancing Horse.

***Ferrari’s head of race and test operations Giuliano Salvi said that Ferrari was braced for its manufacturers’ points lead to be cut at a circuit that has always proven a struggle for the 499P, singling out Antonio Giovinazzi for special praise for running as high as third in the second stint aboard the championship-leading No. 51 car before contact and penalties caused the car to drop out of the points.

***Salvi told reporters: “We were hoping to be in the lower part of the top ten with both cars, which I think was feasible, to score a few more points. But we never thought about closing the championship here. I was really surprised that ‘Giovi’ brought back the car in third position — I don’t know how he did it! He did a really good job.”

***Looking ahead to the Bahrain season finale, Salvi said he expects a more competitive showing from Ferrari, but stressed the manufacturers’ crown remains the priority for the marque above the drivers’ title, for which the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari and No. 6 Porsche crews are still in contention. “The manufacturers’ title is the first priority,” he said. “If this had been closed, I would have let the drivers race more freely, but for sure the priority is the manufacturers’. The No. 83 car can do whatever it wants, as usual!”

***Aston Martin celebrated its best finish yet in global competition for the Valkyrie Hypercar as the post-race penalty for the No. 94 Peugeot elevated the No. 009 car shared by Marco Sorensen and Alex Riberas to fifth in the final results.

***Riberas however believes a podium was “attainable” without the third and final safety car period, which was ironically triggered by the sister No. 007 car of Tom Gamble’s Turn 3 spin and resulting crash with the Heart of Racing Aston LMGT3 car.

***The Spanish driver explained: “When I was about to pit, I was fourth but with a pretty large gap behind me, and I was catching second and third. We boxed under green conditions and not use four tires, because we had the gap. And right after, on my out lap, we had the FCY because of the crash of the No. 007, safety car, and then everyone behind me pitted for four new tires. Without the safety car, I think we would have kept fourth until the final pit stop, when Marco got in and had four new tires.”

***Daniel Juncadella admitted he “regretted” not pitting under the final safety car period, as the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette ended up out of the points in 11th. He told Sportscar365: “They [the No. 81 crew] took the risk to pit under safety car, and we nearly did it as well, but we were P2 at the time. If nobody else did it, we would have been back to P17. We regretted it when so many cars pitted. We would have been P9 for the restart. It’s always hard to take the risk when you are the front.”

***James Cottingham described the way in which the No. 59 United Autosports McLaren crew’s race unravelled as “heart-breaking”. The Bronze-rated Briton raced to an early 20-second lead only for the safety car, plus a later problem involving an engine map switch and a penalty, consigned the car he shared with Gregoire Saucy and Sebastien Baud to 14th, even though Saucy ran ahead of the No. 31 Corvette with no need to stop again.

***Cottingham told Sportscar365: “I gave it everything I could. The first safety car undid the work and then I did it again. Just unfortunately we had a technical issue, and when Sebastien came into the pits, he overtook some cars before the safety car line [earning a penalty]. I could see the energy levels and I could tell that we had enough energy to make the end because Gregoire was doing an amazing job energy-saving. We could have a win, or at least a podium. We’ve had so much bad luck this year with safety cars and small technical issues. It has been frustrating, but today cuts the deepest.”

***Also left to rue a disappointing result was the Racing Spirit of Leman team that had started on class pole with its No. 10 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo only to slump to 17th and last of the finishers in LMGT3. “We had a very good car for one lap, but over a stint it was so hard to drive,” lamented Eduardo Barrichello. “It soon proved we weren’t very quick, and then at the end we had engine problems.”

***Kelvin van der Linde explained that Team WRT opted to perform an early final fuel stop on the No. 46 BMW M4 GT3 EVO in order to stay ahead of the No. 92 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, en route to fourth place ahead of the points-leading car.

***Van der Linde told Sportscar365: “To be honest, we just wanted to cover the No. 92 because virtually they might have overtaken us if I didn’t box. We knew if I had the track position, maybe I could defend, which in the end paid off. It helped our race and it helped the No. 31 car because [Manthey] were super quick and they probably would have overtaken both of us if we didn’t do that strategy.”

***The sister No. 31 BMW, driven by Yasser Shahin, Timur Boguslavskiy and Augusto Farfus, returned to the podium for the first time since the Qatar season opener. Since then, the trio had only finished in the points once at COTA prior to their Fuji result.

***Boguslavskiy said: “I think we deserve a podium, finally. We are not the quickest car but we are really good on strategy and sometimes have much better pace in the race than in qualifying. I was really happy for Yasser and Augusto. They had amazing pace.”

***LMGT3 points-leading Manthey Porsche driver Riccardo Pera secured the Goodyear Wingfoot award based on fan voting on social media, seeing off Cottingham, TF Sport’s Jonny Edgar and Proton Competition Ford driver Stefano Gattuso.

***Notable guests in the paddock spotted at the weekend included 2004 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Seiji Ara, Genesis Magma Racing ‘trajectory program’ driver Jamie Chadwick, reigning SUPER GT champion Sho Tsuboi and former Hertz Team JOTA driver Oliver Rasmussen, who is also racing in SUPER GT this year for the apr Lexus team.

***Organizers revealed a three-day fan attendance of 66,400, the largest in the event’s history, surpassing last year’s 65,800 total. However, the race-day crowd was slightly smaller than in 2024, with 39,700 attending on Sunday, down from 40,400.

***The final round of the WEC season, the 8 Hours of Bahrain, is scheduled for Nov. 8.

Davey Euwema contributed to this report