Toyota driver Ryo Hirakawa has recalled the “stressful” final stages of the 6 Hours of Fuji after he held off the ostensibly faster Alpine of Victor Martins to score the Japanese marque’s first home FIA World Endurance Championship victory in three years.
Hirakawa capitalized on a quick final pit stop during the fourth and final safety car period of an incident-filled race to vault from sixth into the lead aboard the No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid he shares with Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley.
The Japanese driver was then faced with the task of defending from the No. 36 Alpine A424 of Martins, which had slipped from the lead to third after both Toyota and BMW opted to short fill their cars in expectation of an extended caution period following McLaren LMGT3 driver Finn Gehrsitz’s Turn 1 crash.
However, on old tires, Hirakawa hung on from a recovering Martins by just 0.591 seconds around a track where he has plenty of experience not only in WEC but also in categories such as Super Formula and SUPER GT earlier in his career.
“The restart was really tricky,” Hirakawa reflected. “The conditions were changing and the tires were cold, the track was obviously a bit damp. I was lucky that the [No. 2o] BMW, which was a lap down, was in front, so I had them as a reference.
“There was a lot of pressure. I had to think about all the braking points; one lock-up and I could throw it away. But the car felt good even though we didn’t have the pace.”
“The last couple of laps were stressful, but I had good feedback from the team, about where I should block, where I should push. The last couple of laps were not just down to me, but the whole team.”
Giving further detail on the fight against Martins, Hirakawa added: “We knew that the pace of Alpine was much better, but I just had to push. I had confidence in the big braking zones, Turn 1 and Turn 10, but in sector three, they were much quicker.”
“I was just watching the mirror in case he dive bombed. I think my experience here [at Fuji] also helped. I was comfortable pushing and defending without losing lap time, so it was thanks to my experience, I guess.”
The result moves Hirakawa, Buemi and Hartley into the lead of the championship with two races to go, four points ahead of the No. 7 Toyota crew of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries who took the checkered flag eighth.
For his part, Buemi praised the team for its strategic decision-making in the closing stages and pointed out Toyota lacked the pace to fight for victory on pace alone.
“It’s not down to luck, it’s down to making the right decisions,” said the Swiss driver. “They saw with the guard rail that it would take a long time to repair and we decided to not put enough fuel in the car.
“If we had restarted straight away, we would not have finished the race [with the amount of fuel on board]. But we knew it would take some time.
“Ryo still obviously had to stay ahead, and when you looked at our averages, we were the fifth-fastest car, so it’s a massive achievement to win. We didn’t have the pace.
“We won on strategy and by making no mistakes. You cannot dream of a better race, and now we are in the lead of the championship, which is very special.”
Hartley echoed Buemi’s thoughts, and expressed his surprise at recovering to victory in a race during which the Kiwi was spun around after contact with Harry Tincknell’s Aston Martin Valkyrie at Turn 1, which cost the car a position.
“It was almost a faultless race with the pace we had, other than when I was T-boned by another car [Tincknell] coming out of the pits into Turn 1,” said Hartley. “At that point, I never imagined that we were looking at the victory.
“Strategy calls haven’t always gone our way this year, actually we have been unlucky a couple of times, but this time it wasn’t just about luck; they nailed it. We outfoxed the rest of the field with that last call and Ryo held on until the end.”
“It’s an amazing feeling and we take confidence into the final two races and try and hang on to the championship lead.”
