Vanthoor Surprises Toyota to Take Early Lead for Porsche

Laurens Vanthoor took a surprise early lead for Porsche Penske Motorsport in the 6 Hours of Fuji before pitting his No. 6 Porsche 963 earlier than the other Hypercar entries.

The Belgian driver, who started from third on the grid, got the better of Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Sebastien Buemi and pole-sitter Mike Conway, diving up the inside at Turn 1.

It was a messy first corner as only four Hypercars stayed fully on the track through the right-hander, while Michael Christensen’s No. 5 Porsche emerged with a right-rear puncture after a touch from the No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of James Calado.

There was also drama in the GTE-Am pack as Luis Perez Companc went in too deep and spun into the gravel, causing a brief safety car period that lasted five minutes.

When racing resumed, Vanthoor led away from Miguel Molina and Calado in the two Ferraris and the Toyota GR010 Hybrids of Conway and Buemi, which started on hard tires.

The Porsche driver, running on mediums, proceeded to open a 13-second lead before pitting after around 50 minutes, followed by the other Hypercars around 10 minutes later.

Behind Vanthoor, the Ferraris came under pressure from the Toyotas and Conway first split them by overtaking Calado on the brakes into Turn 1 after 35 minutes of racing.

Buemi followed his teammate through a few laps later by powering past the No. 51 Ferrari down the long main straight, while Conway squeezed between Molina and the pit wall before taking second on the exit of the first corner.

Just before the end of the first hour, and after Vanthoor had pitted, Buemi moved the No. 8 Toyota into net third after an entertaining battle between the two manufacturers that fought for the overall 24 Hours of Le Mans victory in June.

Alex Lynn observed the action in the sixth-placed No. 2 Cadillac V-Series.R. The privateer Porsches of Antonio Felix da Costa, driving for Hertz Team JOTA, and Proton Competition’s Harry Tincknell dispatched the two Peugeot 9X8s further back in the field.

United Autosports took charge in the early stages of LMP2 despite the team’s second-placed No. 23 Oreca 07 Gibson serving a 10-second penalty at its first pit stop for an incident with the No. 41 Team WRT car.

Filipe Albuquerque stretched clear in the No. 22 United machine, while Josh Pierson kept the No. 23 in second after his lengthened pit stop.

The No. 28 JOTA Oreca of David Heinemeier Hansson advanced from fifth to third during the pit cycle, but dropped back to sixth when the Dane was turned around by Antonio Felix da Costa in Hertz Team JOTA’s Porsche 963 at the Turn 10 hairpin.

In GTE-Am, D’station Racing elected to start the race with Gold-rated driver Tomonobu Fujii whereas the rest of the teams put their lower-graded Bronzes behind the wheel.

That enabled Fujii to build an early lead in the No. 777 Aston Martin Vantage GTE as Corvette Racing’s pole-sitter Ben Keating dueled with Sarah Bovy for second.