Across the 14-season history of the FIA World Endurance Championship, the title battles have never been more open than they are heading into this weekend’s 6 Hours of Fuji.
With just three races remaining in the 2026 campaign, every competitor in the 37-car field remains in mathematical contention for their respective Drivers’, Manufacturers’ and Teams’ crowns, with the tie at the top of the Hypercar Drivers’ World Championship once again set to be at the centre of attention.
Had Lone Star Le Mans, the most recent FIA WEC event held earlier this month at the Circuit of The Americas, only been five hours and 45 minutes long, we’d be looking at a very different picture. However, a heartbreaking hydraulic failure for the #7 Toyota Racing TR010 Hybrid cost Nyck de Vries, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi both race victory and a vital 25 points.
Instead of heading to its home event with a 25-point lead in the Drivers’ World Championship, and a 34-point advantage in the Manufacturers’ standings, Toyota is instead going to a race it has struggled at for the past two seasons, knowing that the pressure is on to deliver a big result.
Winners of nine previous 6 Hours of Fuji, Toyota has finished no better than seventh over the last two years, a dip in form it will be looking to bring to a close this weekend.
Truth be told, Toyota should at least be thankful that its main championship rivals were unable to take advantage of its misfortune in Texas. In the first off-weekend for the updated 2026-spec BMW M Hybrid V8 in FIA WEC competition, the #20 BMW M Team WRT entry finished outside of the points in 12th, meaning that Robin Frijns and René Rast remain level with the #7 Toyota crew on 75 points.
Both manufacturers also have a second card to play, which could prove vital in this current era of strategic Hypercar races. The #8 Toyota of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sébastien Buemi is on 64 points, with #15 BMW pairing Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello on 54 points.
In the Manufacturers’ standings, Toyota currently holds a nine-point lead over the Bavarian brand.
Also in the championship picture is Ferrari, after the Prancing Horse ended its longest-ever winless run in Hypercar at COTA. The #50 499P of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen has vaulted four places up the standings and onto 54 points, with the trio well-placed to launch an assault for their maiden World Championships should they be able to keep up their momentum from the Lone Star state.
But the sister #51 Ferrari was another car which could have taken a major step forward in the championship fight – but instead failed to put any points on the board. Defending Drivers’ World Champions James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi spent the early stages in the lead of both the race and virtual Drivers’ standings, but a disastrous long pit stop saw them finish 11th and remain on 58 points.
Fuji has proven to be a bogey track for the 499P in recent years, with it being the only venue the car has raced at and never finished on the podium.
The lack of consistency from those at the top of the table means that at least where the Drivers’ Championship is concerned, several more crews can work their way back into contention. The #35 Alpine and #12 Cadillac squads are both on 44 points, with the #007 Aston Martin only two points further back after a methodical campaign has seen Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell be the only line-up to score points in every round.
All three marques also have a strong recent history at Fuji Speedway, and can therefore be optimistic heading into this weekend.
12 months ago, the Japanese venue was the site of the Alpine A424’s first, and to-date only, FIA WEC victory, as Ferdinand Habsburg, Charles Milesi and Paul-Loup Chatin triumphed in the 100th FIA WEC race. This was no fluke, either. Fuji was also the site of the A424’s first podium back in 2024.
Habsburg and Milesi will share the #35 Alpine as a pair this weekend, with their 2026 co-driver Antonio Felix da Costa, as well as Frédéric Makowiecki from the sister #36 entry, absent following a late call from the Signatech-run operation to switch to competing with only two drivers per car. Da Costa has described this as a strategic decision in a statement made on social media.
Cadillac is still waiting to achieve a strong finish at the 4.563-kilometre venue, but the V-Series.R’s raw pace has been on display through back-to-back pole positions from Alex Lynn. Lynn won’t be able to defend his pole position with the Briton not returning from his surgery-induced break until the next round at Barcelona, meaning it will fall to one of his Hertz Team JOTA teammates to uphold honours this year.
And Aston Martin enjoyed a breakthrough weekend at Fuji in 2025, with the Valkyrie qualifying third on the grid before scoring a top-five finish, both record positions for the programme at the time.
Peugeot TotalEnergies also has a strong record at Fuji, with fourth in 2024 followed up by a runner-up result last season. The 9X8 is overdue a top result, with this form indicating that this weekend could perhaps be its best opportunity.
Outside of qualifying at Spa-Francorchamps, where Malthe Jakobsen scored pole, 2026 has proven disastrous for the French marque, which has lacked the race pace needed to challenge for strong results. Seventh at Spa is its best finish across the opening five events.
As shown by the sheer volume of unexpected podium finishers across the past two years, the 6 Hours of Fuji has evolved into one of the more chaotic races on the FIA WEC calendar in the Hypercar era, and that’s without the presence of the rain for which the event earned a reputation through the 2010s.
It’s therefore a round which the opportunists will be looking forward to, whilst the championship challengers know, with only two races remaining after the chequered flag waves on Sunday, that it could easily either make or break their seasons.
Chaotic is good news for the one marque in Hypercar which has nothing to lose, Genesis. The Korean brand has ticked almost every box during its maiden campaign with the GMR-001, has shown opportunistic form through its eighth-place finish on an alternate strategy at Spa-Francorchamps, and is looking for a top-five finish to put the bow on an impressive season.
In LMGT3, the #33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R remains in the championship lead it has held since winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but the rest of the leaderboard has received a significant shake-up after seven of the top eight cars entering Lone Star Le Mans failed to finish in the top 10 at CoTA.
The one outlier was the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo of François Heriau, Simon Mann and Alessio Rovera, which is now the only LMGT3 entry to have scored points at every event. The trio now sit 22 points behind TF Sport’s Jonny Edgar, who leads the Drivers’ Standings alone, having been the only driver to have contested every race aboard the #33 Corvette.
As the last two winners at Fuji, both TF Sport and Vista AF Corse can be optimistic of being competitive this weekend, although the historical advantage lies marginally with the Italian squad. A class winner in LMGTE Pro in 2022, LMGTE Am in 2023 and LMGT3 in 2024, the Ferrari operation only missed out on making it four wins in a row last year due to a five-second penalty for a pit stop infringement.
Although the lead margin in LMGT3 is 22 points, plenty of crews will be looking to enter the championship picture with a strong finish, as only 20 points separate the #21 Ferrari from the #10 Garage 59 McLaren LMGT3 Evo, which sits 11th in the standings.
Defending champion Manthey sits third and fifth respectively with its pair of Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3s, with both Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3s also in contention in fourth and sixth.
The American squad, which scored its first victory in two years at CoTA, has proven to be the team to beat in qualifying this season and is currently on a run of three consecutive pole positions. It also counts defending Fuji pole sitter Eduardo Barrichello amongst its drivers.
Team WRT finished third and fourth at Fuji last year, and will be looking to put some big points on the board after both of its BMW M4 LMGT3 EVOs ran into trouble at COTA. Its #69 BMW, which is sporting a Jägermeister-inspired livery this weekend, is seventh in the Teams’ Championship despite only scoring points in two races all season, whilst frequent misfortune has so far limited the sister #32 effort, which will benefit from running without a success handicap.
The handicap is unlikely to be a major obstacle this weekend, with it being split across eight different cars, and no one receiving more than one third of the maximum permitted impediment. Both TF Sport Corvettes and the #27 Aston Martin will run with the largest success handicap of anyone in the field this weekend.
The highest-ranked unaffected cars are Akkodis ASP Team’s pair of Lexus RC F LMGT3s, for what is likely the car’s final outing on home soil before being replaced by the Toyota GR GT3 next year. The #78 Lexus can also count defending Fuji winner Tom van Rompuy amongst its line-up.
Of those who could expect a more difficult weekend, the Ford Mustang is yet to finish in the top 10 across its two previous visits to Fuji Speedway, although one of the Proton Competition-run machines was in podium contention before picking up damage last year.
The McLaren LMGT3 Evo, meanwhile, has historically shown strong pace in Japan in the hands of the previously nominated team, United Autosports, with both cars qualifying in the top three last season. After some challenging races, Garage 59 will be hoping they can unlock the same performance from the car this weekend.
The 2026 6 Hours of Fuji, the sixth round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship, will take place across the weekend of 25th to 27th September 2026.
The event will follow the traditional FIA WEC weekend format, with a pair of 90-minute Free Practice sessions on Friday, before the TV broadcast begins with the 60-minute Free Practice 3 and Qualifying on Saturday. The six-hour race will then begin at 11:00 JST (02:00 UTC) on Sunday.
Images courtesy of Andrew Hall, DPPI and Andrew Lofthouse
