Stats and facts
Toyota Racing now has 10 home wins in the FIA WEC era, collecting its first set of winner’s trophies since 2023 earlier tonight with the #8 crew. WEC Stats also points out that all of its LMP1 and Hypercar models have won their first race at home too.
Team WRT’s LMGT3 victory with the #32 M4 LMGT3 Evo was the Bavarian brand’s first at the Fuji Speedway in the FIA WEC. WRT has also won three times at the circuit and podiumed at every WEC race at Fuji since 2022, with successes in LMP2 and LMGT3.
The final two 2026 FIA WEC entrants to score points in every race, the #007 Aston Martin and #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari, lost their streaks today. The #007 was penalised multiple times and finished outside the top 10, and the #21 retired after a double collision with the #009 late in the race at Turn 1/2.
For the Alpine Endurance Team, it wasn’t a second consecutive victory at Fuji today, but the #36 secured back-to-back podiums at the circuit with its second-place finish. The #36’s result also matches the best result of the season for a two-man crew in Hypercar, the previous best being the #12 Cadillac at Interlagos.
It was a down day for Ferrari. With a 10th-place finish for the #51, a retirement for the #50 and a non-points score for the #83, it marks the 499P’s worst-ever race result. Prior to today, its weakest race weekends were a best finish of P9, also at Fuji, in 2024 and 2025.
Peugeot enjoyed its best result of the season, with the #94 finishing P6.
Fleming takes Wingfoot Award
British racer Tom Fleming claimed the Goodyear Wingfoot Award, voted by fans via the WEC’s Instagram page from a nominated shortlist.
Fleming was exceptional for Garage 59 in tricky conditions, taking his #10 McLaren GT3 Evo to the front of the field.
Vandoorne bows out
Belgian racer Stoffel Vandoorne wasn’t able to end his tenure with Peugeot’s FIA WEC Hypercar programme on a high today, as the #93 retired with gearbox trouble before he climbed in for his first stint.
“The end of my chapter with Peugeot Sport here in Fuji,” he wrote on social media. “Not the best way to finish with a mechanical issue, but loved every minute of competing in the WEC. I’ll be back in the future, but for now, excited for what’s to come in 2027! Keep you posted soon!”
Bourdais: Cadillac “overachieved”
Both Cadillacs finished in the points for a third straight race. While #38 driver Sebastien Bourdais felt the team wasn’t aggressive enough with strategy on the final stops – taking tyres and sacrificing track position – he was pleased with the execution across the meeting.
“I think we overachieved, to be honest, as far as pace with the level of performance we had this weekend, it was a very unfavourable one on paper. The team, though, executed really well. We made a lot of changes to the setup, learned things in FP3, and put it all together in a hybrid solution for the race, and it kind of worked.
“The car was actually very nice to drive, and for me, it’s not happened so many times that I felt I could drive and not be driven around.
“To be on the attack, and to feel under control, it was nice. We had a couple of setbacks; we didn’t have an ideal start, but we were hanging around P4 when I got out of the car.”
Riberas: Miscommunication added to Valkyrie woes
It was a poor end result for both Aston Martin Valkyries in today’s 6 Hours of Fuji. Both cars were in contention for a podium or better throughout, before things unravelled late on. The #007 received multiple penalties and pitted just before a safety car, while the #009 fell from top five to ninth after making contact with the #21 Ferrari late in the race.
Speaking post-race to DSC, Alex Riberas admitted that whilst numerous teams successfully gambled prior to the final restart, short-fuelling their cars, anticipating a long safety car correctly, Heart of Racing also made an error on strategy.
“Some people decided to underfuel due to the barrier damage; we made the mistake of overfuelling. It was a case of miscommunication, really.”
Both Valkyries lost an opportunity for the car’s first podium finish in the WEC, but the team was pleasantly surprised with the car’s performance in wet weather conditions. And with the two replacement races at Barcelona and Monza to come over the next two months, it’s unlikely to be the last time we see these conditions.
Genesis misses out
While Aston Martin fell short of its first podium, Genesis Magma Racing also missed out on an opportunity to improve on its programme-best finish of seventh at COTA.
The #19 car in particular spent much of the race on course to achieving that, running fifth on pace and even leading briefly as others pitted. Genesis too, though, suffered dramas, some of its own making, with the #19 receiving a drive-through late on that dropped it to 11th.
The sister car also failed to score points, finishing 15th after it too was penalised.
“There were a lot of positives, of course,” Juncadella, driver of the #19, said. “We were competitive in the dry, in mixed conditions and in the wet. We had a very good first half of the race. We were comfortably running around P4, so it was looking great. Unfortunately, the last pit stop was a bit of a chaotic one with the whole grid pitting all together, bunched up.
“We lost a bit there, and that had a big consequence, so we dropped to P9 at the time. It looked like we were going to finish in P7, but we had a drive-through also for a small mistake under double yellows. It’s a shame because I think everybody deserved a strong result today. Before the last pit stop we were ahead of the #8 Toyota that won the race.”
Robichon (THOR): “We thought we had no chance” en route to podium
The Heart of Racing’s #27 Vantage AMR LMGT3 had a remarkable turnaround at the end of the race, from the clash that brought out the final safety car to the finish.
It lost its left-rear tyre, completed a slow lap under safety car conditions, and restarted eighth in class in the final hour with Mattia Drudi at the wheel, but came through the field, unscathed, to second.
“I felt at one point that we were better off throwing in the towel,” Drudi’s teammate Zach Robichon told DSC. “It was such an unfortunate incident. We’re all really glad the driver is ok. Then the restart came, and we were in the right place at the right time more than once.
“It was elbows out from everybody, and we were on the radio saying we really didn’t have the pace, so let’s just keep it clean. That’s literally all we did. Mattia just followed everybody who were pushing each other out of the way and followed through. All we did was not hit anybody at the end, with everyone else making contact with pretty aggressive moves.
“That left us salvaging something on a day that was not good for the whole team. That was perhaps lucky, but that being said, I can think of numerous races over the last two years where we felt we probably deserved a podium, and for one reason or another, we ended up shuffled out of it. Barcelona is going to be really tough, though, with the weight we’re going to be carrying through success ballast.
“With P2 in the championship, a win at COTA and P2 here, that’s something like 42 kilos, which equates to something like a second a lap at Barcelona. But you know what, we thought we had no chance here, and look where we ended up. This is proof that anything can happen.”
Habsburg (Alpine): Toyota “deserved” Fuji win
Alpine’s Ferdinand Habsburg admitted that Toyota deserved to win today’s race at Fuji, due to its bold but smart strategy call at the final stops.
The A424s controlled much of the race, but in the end, finished second (#36) and fourth (#35), losing out to Toyota and BMW’s decision to take only fuel to gain track position.
“It was a great gamble from them,” He said. “We weren’t in the position to take that risk. When you’re not in the lead, you’re way more likely to try to get there. It’s fair to say, though, we didn’t anticipate the length of the safety car as much as they did.
“Perhaps we could have been more aggressive that way, because it would have been awesome to get both cars on the podium, and/or to have a win.
“For so long, that seemed in the bag. But they just did so well in anticipating what they did. It was a great decision, and in the end they deserved a win.”
Images courtesy of DPPI
