Late Safety Car and Strategic Gamble pay off: Toyota wins at Fuji

Rick Kiewiet

1 minute ago

3 min read

Text: Rick Kiewiet

Images: GT Report by Jacob Suter

Toyota converted a late safety car into a shock 6 Hours of Fuji victory, with a bold fuel-only strategy elevating the #8 TR010 Hybrid from sixth to the win in the race's closing stages. In LMGT3, Team WRT's Augusto Farfus produced a stunning late charge to snatch victory in the #32 BMW M4, capping a frantic finish shaped by the same late-race safety car period.

Hypercar

Alpine controlled the bulk of the six hours, with the #35 and #36 A424s running in close formation at the front for long stretches after starting from the front row. The race turned with 58 minutes to go, when the #58 Garage 59 McLaren of Finn Gehrsitz made contact with Mattia Drudi's #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin along the front straight, spearing the McLaren head-first into the barriers and triggering the race's fourth and final safety car. Gehrsitz walked away unhurt; Drudi's Aston Martin suffered a delaminated left-rear tyre.

With the field pitting as one, Toyota and BMW gambled on fuel-only stops to jump the order. The #8 Toyota, running sixth at the time, filled to just 72 percent, with the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 doing likewise at 76 percent, vaulting both to the front. Alpine took the safer route, giving Victor Martins in the #36 an entirely fresh set of tyres while Charles Milesi's sister #35 received two new left-side tyres only, dropping the pair to fifth and third respectively and sandwiching Aston Martin's Marco Sørensen between them.

At the restart with 20 minutes remaining, Martins sliced through the order, passing Sørensen before Milesi yielded position under team orders, then dispatched Dries Vanthoor's BMW at the unorthodox location of Turn 14 to move into second, 2.6 seconds behind Hirakawa. The gap shrank as both cars threaded LMGT3 traffic, but Hirakawa held firm as rain returned, defending under heavy pressure to take Toyota's first win at Fuji since 2023 by 0.591 seconds.

"The last couple of laps were particularly stressful, but the team did a great job," Hirakawa said afterwards. The result lifts Hirakawa, Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley to the top of the drivers' standings with two rounds remaining. Vanthoor's BMW completed the podium in third, ahead of Milesi's #35 Alpine in fourth and the Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac in fifth.

It was a mixed day elsewhere in Hypercar. Hartley had earlier been spun by the #007 Aston Martin, which later took a drive-through for a pit lane white line infringement before a further penalty for Turn 1 contact with the #8 Toyota dropped it to 14th. The sister #009 fell to ninth after contact with the #21 Ferrari. Among the title contenders, the #20 WRT BMW of Robin Frijns and René Rast finished 13th after a puncture and rear-end damage, while the #50 Ferrari retired with a loss of power for Miguel Molina.

LMGT3

The Gehrsitz/Drudi clash reshaped LMGT3 as much as Hypercar. Drudi's #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin looked out of contention after the contact but recovered from eighth at the restart to second at the flag, salvaging valuable points for himself and the team.

Ahead of him, WRT's #32 BMW M4 produced the story of the race. Sitting fifth before the final round of stops, Farfus fought his way past TF Sport's Nicky Catsburg with a bold move at the hairpin, then reeled in Racing Team Turkey's Charlie Eastwood, who defended stoutly before Farfus finally squeezed through on the run up the hill with seven minutes left. It capped WRT's second victory of the season alongside co-drivers Sean Gelael and Darren Leung, following the sister car's win at Imola in the campaign opener.

The #34 Corvette of Racing Team Turkey held on for third after a late fuel-only stop and a race-long recovery from being hit at the opening-lap Turn 1 incident, which was caused by the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari of François Heriau and also damaged the #92 Manthey Porsche, the #61 Iron Lynx AMG (retired) and the #88 Ford of Stefano Gattuso (retired). The #54 Vista AF Corse Ferrari finished fourth, with the championship-leading #33 TF Sport Corvette fifth — a result that extends Catsburg and Jonny Edgar's points lead to 24 over the resurgent #27 Aston Martin.