No. 8 Toyota Wins 6H Fuji to Match Alpine Crew in Points

Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa won the 6 Hours of Fuji to draw level with Alpine’s crew at the top of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

The winning No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid finished one minute and eight seconds ahead of its teammate No. 7 machine driven by Mike Conway, Jose Maria Lopez and Kamui Kobayashi as Toyota Gazoo Racing claimed a dominant one-two on home soil.

Victory at Fuji Speedway leaves Hartley, Buemi and Hirakawa on 121 points in the Hypercar standings, while a third-place finish for Nicolas Lapierre, Andre Negrao and Matthieu Vaxiviere put the Alpine trio on the same amount with only one race to go.

Alpine’s drivers arrived in Japan with a 10-point lead after winning the 6 Hours of Monza.

Toyota controlled the entire contest at Fuji, with the No. 7 car leading the first hour through pole-sitter Kobayashi.

However, the No. 8 Toyota kept its stablemate in sight and Buemi soon got close enough for the team to coordinate a positional switch between its drivers at Turn 10.

The gap dramatically increased in the second half of the race, with Hartley running 35 seconds clear of Lopez at the four-hour mark as the No. 7 faded away.

A trouble-free run to the checkered flag from Hirakawa ensured the 24 Hours of Le Mans-winning car claimed its second victory of the WEC campaign.

The podium-completing Alpine A480 Gibson had a clean race but was unable to challenge the Toyotas, which topped every session this weekend and put two laps on the Signatech-run team’s grandfathered LMP1 car.

Both Peugeot 9X8s reached the finish line after only the No. 94 did so during the manufacturer’s WEC debut at Monza in July.

However, both cars also encountered problems that required visits to the garage and prevented Peugeot from claiming a first podium with its new LMH car.

The No. 94 experienced an oil leak after two and a half hours, costing it 13 laps in the garage. Peugeot did not immediately name the issue on the No. 93, however the symptoms were similar as it also returned to the pits with a trail of smoke exiting the rear.

Peugeot turned the No. 93 car around in a quicker time than the No. 94, which enabled Paul di Resta, Mikkel Jensen and Jean-Eric Vergne to finish fourth.

Robin Frijns, Sean Gelael and Dries Vanthoor won an engaging LMP2 race for Team WRT, which resisted the best efforts from JOTA.

Frijns finished ahead of Will Stevens, who took second in the No. 38 JOTA Oreca 07 Gibson that was also driven by Antonio Felix da Costa and Roberto Gonzalez.

JOTA led during the final hour but needed to make a splash, after making a pit stop with slightly more than a full stint length remaining.

When Stevens came in with four minutes to go, Frijns sailed past to claim the No. 31 WRT crew’s first win of the season. Vanthoor was new to the lineup, having joined as a one-off substitute for the DTM-tied Rene Rast.

Oliver Rasmussen, who teamed up with Ed Jones and Jonathan Aberdein, defended from Norman Nato to get JOTA’s No. 28 Oreca onto the podium.

AF Corse’s Francois Perrodo, Nicklas Nielsen and Alessio Rovera won LMP2 Pro-Am.

Ferrari Takes Dominant 1-2 in GTE-Pro

James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi took their second GTE-Pro victory of the season, at the head of a clear one-two result for the factory AF Corse Ferrari squad.

Calado crossed the line 0.284 seconds in front of Antonio Fuoco, who shared the No. 52 Ferrari 488 GTE Evo with Miguel Molina.

The two Ferraris switched positions twice in the last couple of hours. Fuoco closed down Pier Guidi and ran behind the defending world champion for several laps until he moved past with just over 90 minutes remaining.

Fuoco went on to increase the lead by around five seconds but three of those were handed back to the No. 51 car after the air hose that is used to operate the wheel gun became wrapped around the rear wing during its final service.

This returned Calado to the frame and the Englishman regained the lead with around 50 minutes to go.

Porsche struggled to match Ferrari, with the highest-placed Porsche 911 RSR-19 being the No. 92 car driven by Kevin Estre and Michael Christensen, 31 seconds behind the winner.

Estre battled with Calado in the opening hour, but the No. 92 Porsche faded away with the Frenchman going on to hint at tire wear being a contributing factor.

Gianmaria Bruni and Richard Lietz took fourth in the No. 91 Porsche, which incurred an early drive-through penalty for abusing track limits.

The sole Chevrolet Corvette C8.R was also penalized for the same reason. Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner encountered further strife when their car ran out of fuel as it came in for a pit stop, prompting the Corvette Racing mechanics to push it back to the box.

TF Sport won the GTE-Am race at Fuji to rebound from a huge airborne accident that eliminated it from the previous round at Monza.

The British squad controlled the second half of the race with its No. 33 Aston Martin Vantage GTE driven by Marco Sorensen, Henrique Chaves and Ben Keating.

Sorensen won by 35 seconds from the Iron Dames Ferrari 488 GTE Evo of Rahel Frey, Michelle Gatting and Sarah Bovy.

Charlie Fagg came out best in a battle with Davide Rigon to put Japanese team D’station Racing on the class podium.

RESULTS: 6 Hours of Fuji