Endurance Weekly: 25th September - 1st October

This week on Endurance Weekly, the DIVEBOMB endurance team looks back at the World Endurance Championship's (WEC's) 6 Hours of Fuji and the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS) 9. The team also recaps all of the news stories you may have missed during the week.

WEC 6 Hours of Fuji - Review

The No.35 Alpine drivers celebrating their victory at Fuji | Credit: Alpine

The FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) returned to the foot of Mount Fuji for the 6 Hours of Fuji. The penultimate round of the season was a cagey affair with the championships on the line.

On Saturday, Alex Lynn drove the No.12 Cadillac for its third pole of the season, and teammate Earl Bamber in the No.38 made it a Cadillac 1–2. Aston Martin had its best qualifying session with third for the No.009 car. The home crowd that cheered for Toyota was left disappointed as the best-placed car was the No.8, which qualified eighth fastest.

The race started with ominous clouds on the horizon. The Cadillac duo began to extend their lead as others battled for positions. Incidents followed, with the No.007 Aston Martin colliding with a BMW and then later making contact with the No. 83 Ferrari. The No.8 car received a puncture after the No.35 Alpine collided with it.

The No.15 BMW was the first to retire after it lost all grip on cold tyres and slammed into the wall hard. The No.35 Alpine climbed positions with excellent strategy choices and sat second before inheriting the lead in the second half of the race.

Alpine took home its first win with the A424 in the Hypercar class from the No.93 Peugeot and the No.6 Porsche. The No.81 Corvette took victory in LMGT3. With Porsche outscoring Ferrari this weekend, the championship fight will resume at the 8 Hours of Bahrain finale.

Read DIVEBOMB's full review here.

NLS 9 - Review

Credit: Luna Maas

Despite a less competitive grid, Max Verstappen and Chris Lulham showed their craft in the ninth round of the Nürburgring Langstrecken-Serie (NLS). Having qualified third, the duo comfortably brought the No.31 Emil Frey Ferrari home in first place - 24.5 seconds ahead of the No.9 Ford.

Staggeringly, NLS 9 was also the first GT3 race on the Nordschleife which didn’t feature a Porsche 911 GT3R on the podium. A contributing factor to this was the absence of the Falken Motorsport Porsches, who have 10 podiums this season and counting. Additionally, the No.54 Dinamic GT Porsche never made the start as it suffered technical issues on the formation lap.

Verstappen wasn’t hanging around at the start, taking the lead before turn one - however he was not the driver who gained the most places as Frank Stippler jumped from 14th to second within minutes. Despite Stippler’s vast experience on the ring, Verstappen drove away from the veteran, leaving the No.6 Ford over a minute behind by the half way mark when Lulham took over. 

In the latter stages of the race, the two Fords closed up to the Ferrari, but were unable to get closer than 25 seconds. On his first GT3 race on the Green Hell, Lulham showed immense talent and maturity to finish the race unaffected by the pressure of the American cars behind. 

News Recap

WEC

Toyota give a first look at an updated aero package for the GR010

Credit: Toyota Gazoo Racing

Toyota Gazoo Racing released a series of darkened images on Wednesday, depicting aero updates for its GR010 WEC challenger.

The new car will undergo a two day test on the 8th and 9th of October at the Circuit Paul Ricard, before its homologation for next season.

The Japanese marque is expected to use at least one of its Evo-joker upgrades in the update which is also set to include upgrades to the powertrain system.

IMSA

WRT confirms IMSA entry for 2026

The No.15 WRT's BMW M Hybrid V8 at Fuji | Credit: BMW M Motorsport

After weeks of speculation, BMW confirmed that the Belgian team W Racing Team (WRT) will take over its IMSA Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) programme from Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing (RLL).

WRT will compete in both the WEC and IMSA championships with the M Hybrid V8 LMDh. Formally entering as the BMW M Team WRT GTP, the team will contest all rounds of the 2026 IMSA season.

The team would make its first appearance in November's IMSA-sanctioned test held at Daytona International Speedway. WRT is currently establishing a new home in Charlotte for its American operations.

Full news here