Through the opening five rounds of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship season, Team WRT’s #32 BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo languished 13th in the standings, yet to place a big result on the board.
Whether it was late-race contact at Spa, a lack of pace meaning strong execution yielded little at Le Mans, or a sensor issue which took the car out of the running early on at COTA, the #32 entry was left all too often heading home with the most painful of analytical words, ’if’, headlining its post-race review.
And although this run of misfortune didn’t quite turn around at Fuji Speedway, the result certainly did, with the #32 BMW triumphing in a dramatic 20-minute sprint to the finish.
The Darren Leung, Sean Gelael and Augusto Farfus-crewed effort repeatedly lost ground due to the timing of a Safety Car, having already climbed forward from 14th on the grid after being one of the main losers from the cancellation of qualifying, but with a drive reminiscent of his touring car past BMW M factory driver Farfus was able to score victory.
The Brazilian started the final dash from sixth in LMGT3, having changed tyres at his final pit stop. This would prove critical, as without a straight-line speed advantage it was through having additional grip that Farfus was able to progress through the pack on Fuji’s technical infield.
“I had a tyre advantage to some of the cars,” Farfus stated. “Some of the cars had only half a set [of new tyres]; I had a full set, and I knew that I had to make most of my new tyres.
“We weren’t the fastest car on the straights, so I didn’t think it would ever be a move into Turn 1 because we were not really managing to draft people, so I had to maximise the infield. Some moves were very spicy, but as you’re racing you need to go for the move when there is a gap.
“I think it was one of the finest stints I’ve done in my career, coming and making my way through the traffic. It was very slippery, exactly the track I like, which is not fully dry, very difficult to drive, and that’s where I feel at my best.”
Farfus had climbed to second with 11 minutes to go, before catching the #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R of Charlie Eastwood, which had opted for track position at its final pit stop.
The 43-year-old found his way up the inside at Turn 13, and despite some contact, neither Farfus nor, most importantly, the stewards, saw issue with the move.
Farfus’ effort, however, was far from the only standout performance aboard the race-winning entry.
For the second consecutive event, Leung excelled in damp conditions in the opening stint, climbing from 14th into the top five within the first half an hour, as a scrappy beginning to the LMGT3 battle foreshadowed the duels which Farfus would be involved in later on.
“You’ve just got to drive off instinct,” Leung reflected. “There came a point where I was just in the mess of a massive bunch of cars, and there was one sideways in front of me, so I just had to drive through them to get out. I managed to settle in not long after that, and then it was a bit more one by one after that point.
“Because the conditions were really mixed at the start, that’s where generally I’m happiest versus some of the other competitors. It was just about picking the lines that I could be brave on and getting it sent. I think it’s the most positions I’ve gained in a WEC race so far. So I was pretty pleased.
“It was a bit of a difficult one because there’s time on the table when it comes to making decisions like getting the Bronze out early or getting the Silver out early. We made the call to shortcut a stint. That put us off strategy versus some other guys, and that bit us twice in the race. It was a bit unlucky.
“When you’re off strategy, not every intervention goes against you, but it seemed like every one did. At that time, it was pretty painful to be honest, but we’ve just had so much heartache this year, I feel like I’m just like a well-weathered machine on that front.”
This heartbreak has not been contained to the FIA WEC for the Briton, with late-race pain at both the Dubai 24 Hours and Silverstone 500 headlining a list of near-misses from this year. These, however, have come in one-off outings, and therefore don’t come with quite the same build-up of negative momentum which had occurred in FIA WEC competition.
“[The win] is massive, because we’ve had an absolute rotter of a championship this year and so the bar was just then moved to ‘we just need a result.’ So I was pretty proud of the fact that we were able to grind out a result based on merit from what everybody did.
“We overcame quite a lot of bad luck. It means everything. It’d have been really sickening not to get a result this year after all the work that was being put in, so it means everything.”
And to make victory, his third in LMGT3 competition, all the sweeter, this weekend saw Leung celebrate not only his own but also his daughter’s birthday.
“It’s always a really special time of the year for us when we have this,” he said. “So to win a World Championship race on the same weekend is super special.”
LMGT3 was at its calmest through the middle stints, meaning Gelael wasn’t involved in on-track action to the same extent as his co-drivers. This shouldn’t discredit the work of the Indonesian, who established the #32 BMW in second position, and was well-placed to challenge for victory should the race have gone without its final reset.
“My stint was a bit less eventful than these two,” Gelael stated. “I had a good fight with the Corvette #33 the whole race, and it was pretty simple for me to be honest. Obviously, we had to be lucky or unlucky every time there’s an intervention, which put us in front and then back again, and we always claw back up.”
Looking at the championship picture, although only one of the top nine entries has remained in the same position, the overall narrative has held the same through the Fuji weekend.
Jonny Edgar remains out front, with a comfortable but not safe advantage of 24 points over his nearest competition.
Behind, the bulk of the LMGT3 field remains close, with 24 points also the gap between second and 12th – a pack which now includes the #32 BMW. If Edgar’s #33 TF Sport Corvette slips up, it will only take a strong result or two for someone to bridge the gap to the Briton, but with only 12 hours of racing remaining in the 2026 season, time is rapidly running out for this to occur.
Edgar, Ben Keating and Nicky Catsburg produced comfortably their most competitive performance since their 24 Hours of Le Mans victory in Fuji. The trio followed a similar script to the #32 BMW, with Keating climbing into a top-five position that Edgar would convert into a podium contending run, before the final Safety Car counted against them.
“I’m pretty happy,” Edgar said. “We had a really difficult Friday on our car. We seemed to really struggle compared to the sister car, so we made some changes, and all of Saturday was wet, so we didn’t get a chance to try the changes we made.
“Ben’s start was great. He got us into fourth very early, and then for Ben’s second stint we put a little bit less energy in for him relative to other cars around. The first Safety Car put us in a really bad position because we lost those eight seconds we gained in the pit lane and everyone caught up.
“My first stint was on Ben’s tyres actually, which I think was a great call. It got me track position. And then my second stint, it looked like we were pretty set for a podium. It seemed like the top three were well away from everyone else.”
TF Sport elected not to change tyres at the final pit stop, a call which saw Catsburg slip from second on the restart to an eventual fifth-place finish, but still bank solid points in a chaotic finale where the outcome could have been significantly worse.
“Maybe looking back, we’d have been a little bit higher taking tyres,” Edgar reflected.
“Everyone was really aggressive. With five or six minutes to go, a Ford [the #77 Mustang LMGT3 Evo of Sebastian Priaulx] hit us really hard in T1. I think we had quite a lot of damage on the rear, so we were lucky for it not to be race-ending, from what I’ve heard.
“But we’ve extended our championship lead, which I didn’t expect, and we expect Barcelona to be a good track for us. With it being such a high tyre deg track, it should be great for the Corvette. That’s where we’re really strong, so I’m looking forward to it.”
Edgar’s opposition is now headed by the #27 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3, after the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo missed out on a likely top six finish following contact with the #009 Aston Martin THOR Team Valkyrie Hypercar late on.
Ian James, Zacharie Robichon and Mattia Drudi salvaged an unlikely runner-up finish after Drudi followed Farfus’ progress through the LMGT3 field on the final restart. The #27 Aston Martin was rarely present towards the top of the LMGT3 leaderboard, and was running 11th when contact between Drudi and the #58 Garage 59 McLaren LMGT3 Evo of Finn Gehrsitz on the main straight triggered the race’s decisive Safety Car at the beginning of the final hour.
With this runner-up finish backing up its win at COTA, the #27 Aston Martin is clearly the in-form car in LMGT3 as the season approaches crunch time.
In a success handicap formula, however, this means that it will have to contend with running with 78% of the maximum possible handicap at the penultimate round of the season at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Spain next month, whilst no other LMGT3 runner will have more than a 33% handicap on the series’ maiden visit to the Spanish venue.
Images courtesy of DPPI
