The penultimate race of the 2024 FIA WEC season is now in the books and it was a thriller.
The racing in the 6 Hours of Fuji was frenetic and the final classification had major implications for the title battles in both classes. As an event, it really did deliver the goods.
The #6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963’s win has put the German brand in touching distance of the Hypercar World Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ titles, while Pure Rxcing’s second-place finish in LMGT3 saw it crowned with a race to spare.
Porsche’s historic weekend deserves ample recognition, of course it does, but there is so much more to dissect from what was a thoroughly entertaining six hours.
Here’s what we learned:
Toyota is no longer invincible on home soil
After winning at São Paulo and finishing second at CoTA, Toyota looked back to its best and destined for another win in its backyard in pursuit of the Hypercar titles.
Toyota has been utterly dominant at the Fuji Speedway since the FIA WEC’s inaugural season, winning nine of the first 10 races at the fabled circuit prior to Sunday’s race. Last weekend though, was far from the homecoming it envisioned.
While Rob Leupen, the team director, warned DSC that it was going to be the toughest WEC weekend in Japan for Toyota on Friday morning, he wouldn’t have predicted such an implosion. The #7 crashed out of the race (and essentially, the title battle) and the #8 frittered away its chance of a podium with a late-race penalty, after both cars gradually worked their way into contention through the first three hours.
Just at the point where Toyota appeared to have recaptured its form from recent years, it stumbled and realistically, is left with only the Manufacturers’ title to play for.
In some ways, it’s set up a fascinating finale. With Porsche on course to claim a sweep of all five WEC titles, and Ferrari expecting a stronger showing for its 499Ps, Toyota will need to go for broke at the Sakhir circuit to salvage something from the season.
You’re going to want a comfy chair and a bowl of popcorn at the ready for this one…
Schumacher is finding his feet
There were a number of standout driver performances in Hypercar over the weekend.
Alex Lynn’s run to pole for Cadillac in Qualifying, Daniil Kvyat’s effort to put Lamborghini in Hyperpole, Rafaelle Marciello’s head-turning stint for BMW, Mikkel Jensen’s late-race charge to fourth for Peugeot and Nicklas Nielsen’s fight to the front for Ferrari all turned heads.
But for this writer, Mick Schumacher’s performance in the race for Alpine en route to the podium, was the drive of the weekend. It generated a significant number of interesting stats, including the first podium for Alpine’s A424 and Schumacher’s first, in any race, since his F2 days.
The 25-year-old was, quite rightly, delighted with his performance – which culminated in an epic duel with Norman Nato for third – and had a beaming smile on his face in the post-race mixed zone.
It’s not been an easy year for the #36 crew. They worked tirelessly to get to grips with the new car but all too often come away unrewarded.
Progress has been steady though. After scoring zero points through the first half of the season, the past three races for Schumacher, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxivière have produced 10th, ninth and third-place finishes. It’s building and bodes well for the final race of the year and 2025, should all three drivers return.
“We had some really close battles, and I’m getting more confidence of how to fight in WEC,” Schumacher told reporters. “I wasn’t expecting it to be so hard, but the cars are pretty robust and it seems like the good old days in karting.
“It’s been a lot of fun and it’s been a while since I’ve been on the podium – I didn’t really know what to do anymore, it’s been so long! But I’m really happy.”
He should be!
BMW and Alpine continue to take steps forward
BMW Team WRT and Alpine Endurance Team’s gradual uptick in form since Le Mans has been one of the stories of the season.
The podium finishes for both factories at Fuji are further evidence that these are programmes on a steep upward curve. Whether this swing in momentum carries forward to 2025 remains to be seen, but all the signs are there that the M Hybrid V8 and A424 will be capable of challenging for wins regularly going forward.
BMW’s second-place finish with the #15 was particularly encouraging, with the car qualifying on the front row and holding station at the front of the field for the entire race. It was a complete performance, which Vincent Vosse’s team will hope to replicate in Bahrain and beyond.
“A win was going to be difficult, we could have been close on pace, but on tyre deg we weren’t as strong as Porsche,” summarised #15 driver Dries Vanthoor post-race. “But we didn’t expect second before the start of the race, so we can be very happy.
“Through the year we’ve identified the areas we had to work on, and have been going in that direction. COTA was the first sign it was working, but the question mark was whether it would work in Fuji. COTA was when we were first competitive with both cars in Hyperpole and then running third and fourth in the race at one stage.
“The key is that wasn’t a one-off, the car worked here (in Fuji) as well and the ball is rolling in the right direction.”
Ferrari’s LMGT3 programme is finally coming on strong
On a weekend which saw Ferrari’s factory Hypercars struggle mightily, Vista AF Corse stepped up in LMGT3, taking pole with the #55 and winning the race with the #54.
It was, undeniably, an impressive showing and one that could have been even better. Had the #54 not suffered through an ABS failure in the race, a 1-2 finish would likely have been on the cards for the Italian marque. Both cars had pace and would have been in the mix with their pro drivers at the end with the field bunched up. Nevertheless, Ferrari finally has a breakthrough LMGT3 result to celebrate after a rather lacklustre run through the first six races.
A big weekend like this one had seemingly been coming for a while. Both Davide Rigon and Alessio Rovera – Ferrari’s pair of factory drivers embedded in the team – were keen to tell DSC before the track action began in Fuji that both Thomas Flohr and Francois Heriau (the Bronze-graded drivers) had been quietly making significant improvements to their race craft in recent months.
Heriau, Rovera explained, has become proficient at managing tyres and Flohr, according to Rigon, is now comfortable driving a GT car with ABS. All that was required, they felt, was a clean weekend to show what they could do.
The fact that Ferrari hadn’t yet found a way onto the podium in LMGT3 prior to Fuji, was almost inconceivable. But that’s changed now and Vista AF Corse heads to Bahrain with the sole aim of grabbing win number two.
Have the floodgates opened? We shall find out very soon.
Interest in the current top class regulations still hasn’t peaked
6H Fuji week started with a bang. Genesis, Hyundai’s premium brand, formally confirmed its intention to join the top class of endurance racing with an LMDh challenger, becoming the seventh manufacturer to commit to the ruleset.
Details on Genesis’ programme are scarce right now. We have no delivery date, no confirmed partner teams and no formal word on where we will see it race. Signs point towards a dual programme in both FIA WEC Hypercar and IMSA GTP, but we’ll have to wait a little longer to hear more from the horse’s mouth.
Either way, it was welcome news to receive. With so many manufacturers on board and more on the way, this is an era that looks set to remain resilient through to the end of the regulation cycle (which was extended through to the end of 2029 back in June) and could well have staying power beyond that.
Perhaps the most interesting question at this stage, is: How does a Genesis effort fit into the top classes of IMSA WeatherTech and the FIA WEC? Both championships are oversubscribed and struggling for garage space as it is.
There are, however, rumblings that multiple manufacturers are considering their future in the formula or exploring what scaled-back programmes would look like. And while DSC isn’t convinced the picture is in any way grim at this stage for the OEMs in question, we’re at a point now where we could lose one, or two, or even three factories from the WEC Hypercar field and still hold races with an entry in the high teens.
Just take a moment to think back to where we were just a few years ago, when cobbling together three or four entries for the WEC’s top category was a task. It’s hard to believe how far we’ve come in such a short space of time.
Make the most of it folks. Hypercar and GTP look set to be a smash hit for years to come, but this is an era that won’t last forever, so savour every race…
