With the summer break for the FIA WEC now over, it’s time for the second flyaway race of the season, the teams heading east to Japan for the penultimate round of the championship, the 6 Hours of Fuji.
While Corvette Racing has sewn up the GTE Am titles ahead of this weekend, after another fine performance at Monza, there’s still so much up for grabs in both Hypercar and LMP2 with 14 hours of WEC racing remaining.
In Hypercar, with a maximum of 65 points up for grabs, the #8 Toyota crew of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa lead the standings in Hypercar. The gap between them and the sister #7 GR010 and the #51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P is 23 points after the #7’s victory at Monza.
The second Ferrari, the #50, sits fourth, a further seven points adrift. There are two other cars mathematically in the hunt, with the Ganassi Cadillac 44 points off the championship lead and the #5 Porsche in sixth, 63 points off.
So far this year we have had three winners, but it is consistency for the championship leaders that has paid dividends. Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa have just one race win, at Portimao, but three second-place finishes plus a sixth at Monza, grabbed by a hard-charging Hartley has kept them ahead of the #7, which has three wins, but crucially a DNF at the double-points scoring race at Le Mans.
The #51 Ferrari meanwhile, has just one win too, at Le Mans, with the sister car showing great consistency through the season, with the exception of the retirement at Spa. Two second-place finishes, a third and a fourth keep their title bid alive.
Fuji is of course Toyota’s home race and the factory squad has amazing form on home ground, plus, it is fair to say, the needle between Toyota and its title rival Ferrari is particularly sharp.
For Toyota, its home race has been a happy hunting ground for a long time, and few would bet against it extending its win streak (which dates back to 2016) to six wins.
Cadillac is unlucky to sit as far behind as it is, wrong-footed by a safety car at Monza, dropping its V-Series.R to 10th. The team’s pace and consistency has been the class of the LMDh side of Hypercar so far, but with only a single podium, albeit at Le Mans, to show for it.
The spoiler here could well be Peugeot. Its first podium came at Monza, with great pace shown by the 9X8s for the second consecutive race. With two circuits that should suit the car’s aerodynamic concept left in the season, watch this space.
Porsche Penske’s team too showed better form in Italy, though once again its cars struggled with straight-line speed. It will hope it can find a set-up that works at the Fuji Speedway, with its 1.5km pit straight.
Don’t count out either of the two privateer Porsches. Both have shown good form with very limited testing. Proton will debut its second 963 (its first car will complete the IMSA season) at Fuji. It and JOTA (which wrapped up the Team’s Hypercar title at Monza) have a number of routes to success: finishing, finishing well, beating each other, beating the Penske Porsches and beating the rest.
The entry list for Fuji sees the Hypercar field reduced to 12 cars again, with Glickenhaus opting to skip the trip to Japan. It is not clear yet whether or not the team will reappear at Bahrain for the season finale, though its movements in previous seasons suggest that a 007 LMH will take no further part.
There is also one driver line-up change to mention, with former McLaren Formula 1 driver and Formula E title winner Stoffel Vandoorne set to make his Peugeot debut. An injury for Nico Muller forced Peugeot to call its reserve into action at a critical point for the programme.
The Belgian’s experience should put him in good stead. He has also been active in testing with Peugeot this year, meaning he has experience driving a 9X8 to draw from. It will be interesting to see how quickly he adapts to life in the #94 alongside Loic Duval and Gustavo Menezes.
In LMP2, just 10 points separate the top two in the championship, with Hypercar-bound Team WRT’s #41 ORECA leading Le Mans winner Inter Europol Competition’s #34 example. United Autosports sits third, 28 points off the lead with its #22 ORECA.
For the race in Japan, WRT and Inter Europol bring unchanged line-ups, with Rui Andrade, Robert Kubica and Louis Deletraz entered for the former and Kuba Smiechowski, Fabio Scherer and Albert Costa with the latter. United meanwhile, has tweaked the line-ups in both its cars.
The #22 sees Filipe Albuquerque return to compete with Phil Hanson and Frederick Lubin after missing Monza. Hanson brings with him momentum, winning the ELMS into-the-night race at Aragon last month. Along with his full-season co-driver Lubin, the duo will hope to reignite their title charge with a strong result this weekend.
United’s sister #23 ORECA meanwhile, sees Ben Hanley return to the team for a third appearance this season in the seat originally held for Tom Blomqvist. Blomqvist is off to compete in the IndyCar finale instead, competing with Meyer Shank Racing ahead of a full-season campaign with the team in 2024.
Another notable drive change is Andrea Caldarelli being confirmed for a second outing in the #63 Prema ORECA entry alongside Doriane Pin and Daniil Kvyat in the seat held by Mirko Bortolotti for the first four races.
Predicting a winner in LMP2, as usual, is a near-impossible task. Outside of the title challengers, will JOTA’s #28 ORECA build on its win at Monza? Can Prema find a way for its #63 to return to the podium after a challenging run of results since Spa? Is Alpine capable of returning to the top step after Julien Canal, Charles Milesi and Matthieu Vaxiviere finished third at Le Mans and second at Monza? Vector too, has shown flashes. Can it find a way to convert outright pace into a result?
These are all questions we are eager to get answers for…
Finally, GTE Am. With the pressure of the title battle lifted, the 13 driver crews head into the final two races focused solely on making the most of the final races of the WEC GTE era.
The field returns to 13 cars, with the return of the Northwest AMR Aston Martin that skipped the round in Italy due to clashes. The line-up is unchanged, with Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas all returning.
There are some notable changes elsewhere though, with two Japanese additions to the #21 AF Corse entry with Horoschi Koizumi and Kei Cozzolino driving alongside Simon Mann.
Cozzolino was part of Kessel Racing’s crew earlier this season but Daniel Serra’s return to the team for this race has forced him to look elsewhere. Ironically perhaps Serra was replaced for Fuji by young Japanese Super GT star Ritomo Miyata.
At Project 1 AO, the ‘Rexy’ livery returns, along with PJ Hyett and Gunnar Jeanette, who also missed Monza due to its IMSA clash. There, Efrin Castro and Guilherme Moura de Oliveira joined Matteo Cairoli. Rexy’s presence is certain to be a smash hit with the passionate Japanese fans, who are expected to turn up in droves this year.
The on-track action is set to kick off on Friday 8 September with Qualifying taking place on Saturday afternoon. The flag for the 6 hour race will be waved at 11 am on Sunday 10 September.
