Toyota delivered a surprising FIA World Endurance Championship victory at Fuji thanks to a bold, late strategy, snatching the 6 Hours of Fuji from Alpine after what had seemed to be a dominant performance for most of the race.
Ryo Hirakawa, Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi claimed victory in the No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid, leaping from sixth to the lead in a frantic dash into the pits following the race’s fourth and final safety-car phase in a race full of incidents.
That performance allowed Hirakawa to hold off Victor Martins—who shares the No. 36 Alpine A424 with Jules Gounon—by 0.591 seconds at the finish in a gripping conclusion.
Alpine appeared set for a one-two result until a substantial accident involving Finn Gehrsitz in the Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo occurred with 58 minutes remaining.
Gehrsitz and Mattia Drudi’s Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo were running wheel-to-wheel along the start/finish straight when contact sent the McLaren violently into the left-hand barrier.
The German driver emerged unscathed from the crash, while Drudi’s car sustained a delaminated left-rear tire, triggering a protracted cleanup operation.
With the pits reopening, almost the entire field pitted, scrambling the running order as both the No. 8 Toyota and the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid carried out short fill stints to improve position, topping up only 72 percent and 76 percent of their energy capacity respectively.
Meanwhile, Martins slid from the lead to fifth, but after the restart with 20 minutes remaining, the French driver quickly dispatched Marco Sorensen’s No. 009 Aston Martin Valkyrie and Charles Milesi’s No. 35 Alpine to reclaim third.
Dries Vanthoor’s No. 15 BMW offered stiffer resistance, and by the time Martins overtook Vanthoor at Turn 14—the circuit’s unconventional corner—Hirakawa led by 2.6 seconds.
The margin dwindled rapidly as they threaded through LMGT3 traffic, but once in clear air Hirakawa managed to fend off Martins and seal Toyota’s first home triumph since 2023, marking the Japanese manufacturer’s third win of the season.
Vanthoor held on to claim the final podium spot for himself, alongside Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello, while Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg—who had briefly led the race around halfway—settled for fourth.
The No. 38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA entry, shared by Jack Aitken, Sebastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber, finished in fifth place.
More to come
