Home heroes No.8 Toyota win intense 6 Hours of Fuji
The No.8 Toyota grabbed Toyota's tenth win at the 6 Hours of Fuji after a bold strategy gamble towards the end of the race, fending off a charging No.36 Alpine on fresh tyres, with just 0.591 seconds separating the pair. The No.15 BMW finished third after also committing to a strategy gamble.
In LMGT3, the No.32 BMW clinched the class win, with the No.27 Aston Martin and the No.34 Corvette finishing second and third, respectively.
This is a recap of the final three hours of the race. To catch up on the first three hours, click here.
As it happened
Heading into the halfway mark, the race leading No.36 Alpine with Victor Martins in the car started losing pace for unknown reasons and soon dropped behind his teammate, the No.35, and was quickly losing time to the No.007 Aston Martin in third.
The No.007 pit after catching up to the Alpine, and the No.36 pit the following lap, with Jules Gounon jumping in the car.
After getting out of the car, Martins attributed the lack of pace in the No.36 to double-stinting the softs and the tyres falling off a cliff towards the end of the second stint.
Towards the bottom of the points positions, the No.50 Ferrari had an abysmally slow stop following an air jack failure, effectively taking the leading Ferrari out of the points.
When the No.35 Alpine pit from the lead, they dropped to third, promoting the No.007 into the lead and the No.36 to second.
Three hours and 37 minutes into the race, a Full Course Yellow was declared to clear some debris.
The No.007's bid to grab Aston Martin's maiden World Endurance Championship win ended early as they were awarded a drive through penalty for crossing the white line into pit entry. After serving the penalty, Tom Gamble in the car dropped down to seventh, just behind the No.19 Genesis.
At the four hour mark, another Full Course Yellow was declared to clear debris at turn one. When the race resumed, the No.007 Aston Martin shot past the No.19 Genesis for sixth.
Eleven minutes later, the No.50 Ferrari stopped on track at the final turn. The car was unable to get going and was forced to retire.
While the Ferrari was idle on track, the No.8 Toyota was spun around after being tagged by the No.007 who just exited the pits.
Just after this incident, a Virtual Safety Car was called to remove the No.50 Ferrari from the track. Most teams took advantage of this VSC period to pit. The VSC soon transitioned into a Safety Car period, bunching the field up.
The two Alpines continued to lead at the restart as their nearest competitors were all stuck behind traffic.
After the restart, the No.7 Toyota and the No.12 Cadillac were both given a drive through penalty for VSC infringements. The pair dropped from seventh and eighth to 11th and 12th respectively.
Meanwhile in LMGT3, a battle for the lead started heating up, with the No.69 BMW, suffering from rear bodywork damage, fending off the No.10 McLaren. Soon, the McLaren got past the BMW and into the lead.
With 57 minutes to go, the No.27 Aston Martin and the No.58 McLaren tangled on the main straight into turn one; the latter hit the wall and retired from the race, while the Aston Martin suffered from a blown right left tyre.
A Safety Car was immediately deployed and the driver of the No.58, Finn Gehrsitz, climbed out of the car unscathed.
Under the Safety Car, different teams opted for varied strategies. The No.8 Toyota and the No.15 BMW short fuelled and chose not to change tyres, and jumped up to first and second.
The No.35 Alpine was third ahead of the No.009 Aston Martin in third and fifth, respectively. The No.36 Alpine changed tyres and dropped down to fifth.
Under the Safety Car, showers made their return to the track. The No.17 Genesis switched to wet tyres and were the only team to make the switch.
After long barrier repairs, the Safety Car was brought in with 21 minutes to go. While the top three maintained positions on restart, the No. 009 lost fourth place to the No.36 Alpine. The No.36 soon got past the sister car, the No. 35, the fresher tyres immediately proving to be pivotal.
Martins in No.36 was soon knocking on the door of the second placed No.15 BMW driven by Dries Vanthoor. As the two blue-liveried cars kept fighting, the No.8 Toyota in the lead took advantage of this to extend the lead to two seconds.
With just less than ten minutes left, the No.36 made its way past the No.15 and had a gap of 2.6 seconds to close to the leading Toyota.
Meanwhile in LMGT3, a heated three-way battle between the No.34 Corvette, the No.32 BMW and the No.27 Aston Martin started brewing.
With older tyres, the No.34 Corvette struggled to defend and soon lost out to the No.32 BMW and the No.27 Aston Martin and dropped to third.
In Hypercar, it took three and a half minutes for Martins in the No.36 Alpine to cut the lead down to just a second as the Frenchman looked rapid on his fresh tyres, but he had the home heroes Ryō Hirakawa and the No.8 Toyota to beat.
After an intense and hard-fought battle and some brilliant defensive driving from Hirakawa, the No.8 Toyota crossed the line first to win the 6 Hours of Fuji, just 6 tenths ahead of the No.36 Alpine. The No.15 BMW finished third to round off the podium places.
The No.35 Alpine finished fourth ahead of the No.38 Cadillac. The No.94 Peugeot finished sixth after a great recovery drive and strategy towards the end of the race. The No.12 Cadillac finished eighth, fending off the No.7 Toyota. The No.51 Ferrari and the No.009 Aston Martin rounded off the top ten.
The winners in LMGT3 were the No.32 BMW, just a little more than a second ahead of the No.27 Aston Martin and the No.34 Corvette took home the final podium spot.
What a finish. 0.591 seconds after six hours is crazy. classroom 6x