***Alpine driver Victor Martins’ best time of 1:29.304 in Friday’s second free practice session for this weekend’s 6 Hours of Fuji compared with a 1:29.495 set by then-Peugeot driver Mikkel Jensen on the opening day of track action at the Japanese venue last year. LMGT3 lap times were considerably faster than 2025, as pacesetter Ben Tuck registered a 1:39.828, versus a 1:41.431 for Clemens Schmid last year.
***Speaking between FP1 and FP2 in the pre-event press conference, Fuji debutant Martins said: “Of course the track is amazing. I really like the first two sectors; sector three is more narrow with lower-speed corners, and it’s not easy for traffic. A lot of things to learn and get on top of, but FP1 went well. I think we look good.”
***Asked about sharing the No. 36 Alpine A424 with Jules Gounon as a duo, after the team’s decision to switch to two-driver lineups for Fuji, Martins replied: “For sure you have more driving time, and as a rookie you want to drive as much as possible. In FP1 it felt like I did quite a few more laps compared to other races. There is more responsibility, for example with track limits, but having more time and experience, trying more tire compounds that you might not try if we were three drivers, there are positive things.”
***Both Genesis GMR-001s completed qualifying simulations on Friday afternoon as the Korean marque gears up for its first race on Asian soil, with Mathieu Jaminet and another Fuji first-timer, Mathys Jaubert, both breaking into the top five in FP2.
***Jaminet said after FP2: “We missed a few things and we need to do more steps for the race if it’s dry, as we didn’t improve on our issues on FP1. The pace looks decent but the others are catching up, so we need to get our head down to make sure we arrive with a competitive package in the race.”
***Robin Frijns shrugged off the fact that BMW did not feature highly in the timesheets in either of Friday’s sessions, pointing out the Bavarian marque opted against performing a qualifying sim in the expectation of rain on Saturday. The No. 20 car that Frijns shares with Rene Rast and Sheldon van der Linde was 17th and last of the Hypercars in FP2.
***Frijns told Sportscar365: “We were focused on long runs, because there’s no point in qualifying runs if it’s going to be wet and we think the race might be dry. I’m not saying we are the quickest, but I do believe we’re in the mix somewhere. It’s hard to say because we don’t know what the others are doing, but the car feels in an okay window.”
***Over at Toyota, Brendon Hartley admitted that the No. 8 car went the wrong direction in setup in second practice after co-driver Ryo Hirakawa’s session-topping time in FP1, while also highlighting the long-run pace of the Japanese marque’s main title rival BMW.
***Hartley told Sportscar365: “Ryo delivered a great lap at the start of FP1, and on long run pace we were in the mix. But in FP2 we took a step back. I think we arrived here with a very good base set-up, but in FP2 we were quite far off, I have to say. The BMW looked very strong on the long runs, and they are our main competitor, which is a concern, and Alpine look quick as well. We’ll take a step back on setup changes.”
***Toyota Racing technical director David Floury has provided further detail regarding the software glitch that caused the No. 8 car to incur a drive-through penalty for pit lane speeding during the Lone Star Le Mans race.
***Floury told reporters: “It was a very small software bug that was triggered by a combination of factors which we never faced, and it triggered the bug when we launched the car from the pit position. This bug is now fixed. It was pretty unfortunate because it was not new code for COTA. It was just a sequence of events that triggered it.”
***Ferrari has clarified that the private test it has planned at Fuji for the Tuesday after this weekend’s 6H Fuji is a one-hour shakedown to ensure reliability before its 499Ps are shipped to Barcelona ready for the penultimate round of the season next month. The 2027-spec Evo car, which ran at COTA, will not run this time.
***The brand’s chief designer and governance relations manager Mauro Barbieri said: “We thought it is the most efficient way to rebuild the cars after the race with new parts, to make sure the reliability is fine. It is the same as we did in Austin with the race cars.”
***Peugeot team principal Emmanuel Esnault told reporters on Thursday he had a “very positive” impression of Robert Shwartzman as the team’s new 2027 signing made his first outing at the wheel of the 9X8 in an endurance test at Portimao on Sept. 15.
***Esnault said: “We know him from the past, from previous experiences. He was very enthusiastic and very happy to be back in a race car after 12 months. He was spot on, straight away he did some very consistent laps. He was on the pace, he delivered.”
***Shwartzman was sharing driving duties at Portimao with Loic Duval, Jean-Eric Vergne, Nick Cassidy, Paul di Resta and Alex Quinn, in what appears to be a preview of Peugeot’s 2027 driver lineup. Pressed for clarity on the matter, Esnault replied: “We know where we are going. We have a clear idea of the plan and how to shape it properly.”
***Corvette Racing’s Nicky Catsburg is amid a run of five consecutive race weekends that has seen him make multiple cross-Pacific trips between Japan and the United States. After the COTA WEC race, Catsburg raced in the Suzuka 1000km before returning to the U.S. for the Battle on the Bricks IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. After this weekend’s Fuji round, the Dutch driver will head back to the U.S. for the WeatherTech Championship season-closing Motul Petit Le Mans.
***Catsburg told Sportscar365: “It has been a lot of air miles and time away from home. I was able to spend some time in Chicago around the Indy race with my girlfriend and my daughter, which was really good to soften the blow a little bit. But it’s a privilege to race so much with awesome places and teams.”
***Elsewhere in LMGT3, Team WRT co-drivers Augusto Farfus and Darren Leung are among a handful of drivers racing at Fuji in between two GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup events. The series raced at Zandvoort last weekend and heads to Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for its finale next week.
***Leung, who celebrated his 39th birthday on Friday, said he believes that while training schedules and sleep patterns are harder to manage, “there is a positive [as] your feelings with the car are a bit more on the front foot. You’re a bit more tired physically, but a bit more centered. Your sense of balance and your proprioception seems to stay sharper, I find. Also, just your little quirks with the car that you’re trying to work around just stay at the forefront of your mind a lot easier.”
***Besides the WRT duo, the other drivers doing the same triple-header are Daniel Juncadella, Thomas Fleming, Marvin Kirchhoefer and Peter Dempsey.
***Ligier has announced the signing of Cyril Reboul and Pierre-Jean Tardy as it continues development on the JS P228 car that will debut in 2028 upon the introduction of the next-gen LMP2 rules. Reboul joins as program director, while Tardy becomes powertrain & hydrogen technical director, with both making the move over from Alpine.
***Japanese constructor Dome held two demonstration runs on Friday prior to each WEC practice session. Toyota SUPER GT regular Kazuya Oshima drove the JMIA-Dome F113, a prototype single-seater conceived as a potential new car for Japan’s Super Formula series, which ran alongside the new Gen2 Formula Regional car, the F112, and a ‘Dome Concept Sports’ prototype driven by SUPER GT legend Satoshi Motoyama.
***Six Hours of Fuji track action continues on Saturday morning with Free Practice 3 at 9:30 a.m local time (Friday 8:30 p.m. EST), just after the ‘Circuit Safari’ session, before qualifying begins at 2 p.m. local time (1 a.m. EST).
