Hirakawa Puts Toyota On Top in FP1 at Fuji

An early flier from Ryo Hirakawa put Toyota on top in opening practice for its home FIA World Endurance Championship round at Fuji Speedway.

Hirakawa posted the best lap of the 90-minute session on Friday morning, a 1:29.694, in the opening stages aboard the No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid he shares with Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley, making him the only driver to break the 90-second mark.

The Japanese driver was 0.343 seconds faster than the No. 12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA entry of Will Stevens as Toyota opened its bid for a first home win since 2023.

Antonio Fuoco put the No. 50 Ferrari 499P third-fastest, 0.509 seconds behind Hirakawa, ahead of the second Cadillac V-Series.R, the No. 38 machine of Jack Aitken, and the No. 36 Alpine A424 of Jules Gounon.

Genesis was an encouraging sixth-fastest in the first outing for the GMR-001 Hypercar at Fuji, with Dani Juncadella posting the best time in the No. 19 car.

Next up was the lead Aston Martin Valkyrie, the No. 007 car of Tom Gamble, while the top ten was completed by Nyck de Vries in the No. 7 Toyota and two more Ferraris, the No. 83 satellite 499P of Robert Kubica and Antonio Giovinazzi’s No. 51 car.

BMW had a relatively low-key opening session with its two M Hybrid V8s, which ended up 12th and 13th behind the second of the Alpines, while the better of the Peugeot 9X8s ended up 14th-fastest.

In LMGT3, Finn Gehrsitz moved to the top of the times with around 20 minutes left on the clock as he posted a 1:40.214 in the No. 58 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.

Thomas Fleming made it a 1-2 for McLaren as he jumped up the order with five minutes to go, posting a 1:40.259 to demote the No. 34 Racing Team Turkey-branded TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R, which had led the way for most of the session with a best effort of 1:40.396 from Charlie Eastwood in the early exchanges, to third.

Fleming improved by a further two thousandths subsequently but ended up 0.043 seconds shy of Gehrsitz’s chart-topping effort.

The two Proton Competition-run Ford Mustang GT3 EVOs were fourth and fifth, Ben Tuck’s No. 77 car leading the No. 88 in which Gianmarco Levorato made a late improvement, followed by Esteban Masson’s No. 78 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3.

The session passed without incident, with only a brief full-course yellow called for debris at Turn 3.

Free Practice 2 is set for 2:30 p.m. local time (1:30 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Free Practice 1