Fuji, Ferrari challenges Toyota
Fuji, Ferrari challenges Toyota
The FIA World Endurance Championship lands in Japan this week for the Fuji 6 Hours, the penultimate round of the 2023 FIA WEC season, which will be held Sept. 8-10 at Fuji International Speedway, the famous circuit in the vicinity of the iconic Mount Fuji.
Toyota è currently leads the overall championship standings with 152 points and 26 ahead of Ferrari, which è is second. However, with a total of 65 points still to be awarded (25 for the Fuji race and 38 for the one in Bahrain, plus an extra point for pole position in each stage), Ferrari can still widely reach the top of the standings.
Thirty-six cars will take on the 4,563-meter Fuji International Speedway, the shortest circuit among those on this year's WEC calendar, which è is located 100 km west of Tokyo and è is famous for its extremely fast 1.5-kilometer start/finish straight, where hypercars reach speeds in the order of 320 km/h. Almost 41 percent of the circuit is run with the throttle fully open, and during each lap hypercar drivers change gears 36 times.
Toyota has an excellent track record on its home circuit, having won all five previous races. In fact, in the current era of the WEC, as of 2012, Toyota è been defeated at Fuji only once in 2015, when it was Porsche that triumphed at the Japanese circuit. However, Ferrari has flexed its muscles more than once this season, including winning at Le Mans, and the fierce Cadillac, Porsche and Peugeot should not be forgotten either, which will not make it easy for Toyota to boast another triumph at home.
TWO HYPERCARS IN THE LIST OF ENTRACTORS IN FUJI; LMP2 TITLE STILL ALL TO BE DECIDED
A total of 12 hypercars will compete in Fuji in the WEC’s premier class, which is one less than the previous round in Monza, as Glickenhaus Racing decided to skip the Japanese leg.
The home fans will of course be there to support Toyota Gazoo Racing, which also counts among its ranks two local drivers: Kamui Kobayashi in the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid and Ryō Hirakawa in the No. 8 sister car. In fact, the Fuji Speedway represents not only the home race track for the team, as the hybrid powertrain of the GR010 HYBRID è was designed, developed and built right here, just a few kilometers from the track.
As for the drivers’ standings, è the crew of the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid (Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryō Hirakawa) to be in the lead with 23 points. In any case, all eyes will also be on the heated battle for second place, which sees the No. 7 Toyota crew (Jose Maria Lopez, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi) tied on points with the No. 51 Ferrari crew, namely the Le Mans-winning trio of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi.
After a successful debut in the hypercar class at Monza in July, Proton Competition’s No. 99 car will bring the total number of Porsche 963s competing in Japan to four, joining the two Porsche Penske Motorsport cars (No. 5 and No. 6) and Team JOTA’s Porsche.
Behind Toyota and Ferrari, Cadillac will try to hold on tightly to its third position in the hypercar category. In fact, the V.R Series's reliability has enabled the brand to capture two podiums this WEC season. The team will make its hypercar debut on Asian soil with the naturally aspirated Cadillac V-Series.R, which è always an interesting attraction for the public.
After its first podium finish in the WEC at Monza in July, Peugeot TotalEnergies will return to Fuji for the second time with its pair of Peugeot 9X8 hypercars. Vandoorne, who è Peugeot TotalEnergies’ official reserve driver, will replace Nico Mueller, who is unable to race in the Japanese round of the WEC due to injury. Vandoorne willà be behind the wheel of the Peugeot 9X8, along with Loic Duval and Gustavo Menezes. The team è is currently fifth in the standings, 16 points behind Porsche, which occupies fourth place. Completing the list of participating hypercars will be Floyd Vanwall Racing with Esteban Guerrieri, Tristan Vautier and Joao Paulo de Oliveira at the wheel.
At Fuji, only ten points will divide the two LMP2 category leaders at the start, with the WRT team ahead of Inter Europol Competition in second place and United Autosports in third.
In LMP2 Felipe Albuquerque will return to the United Autosports team, after missing the previous round due to other racing commitments. Another notable change concerns Prema Racing’s No. 63 car, which will see the return of Andrea Caldarelli in the Oreca 07 Gibson, alongside Doriane Pin and Daniil Kvyat.
As for the LMGTE Am title, Corvette Racing è emerged victorious in Monza, accumulating an impressive 145 points with just two races to go. The battle for second and third place è however, much tighter: only seven points separate, in fact, the second place of the Iron Dames, the third of ORT by TF and the fourth of Dempsey-Proton Racing.
After missing the previous round, the #98 Northwest AMR crew, consisting of Ian James, Daniel Mancinelli and Alex Riberas, will make a welcome return to Fuji.
The Japanese team D'Station Racing then will be a fan favorite at Fuji, with Satoshi Hoshino and Tomonobu Fujii driving the Aston Martin Vantage AMR, along with Casper Stevenson.
Notable changes in the LMGTE Am class include the arrival of two Japanese drivers" for AF Corse’s No. 21 car, Horoschi Koizumi and Kei Cozzolino, who will join Simon Mann. At the start of the season, Cozzolino was on the Kessel Racing team, which will field Daniel Serra instead in this race, along with Japanese drivers Takeshi Kimura and Scott Huffaker.
The on-track action will kick off on Friday, September 8, while qualifying will take place on Saturday afternoon. The race will start at 11 a.m. Sunday, Sept. 10.
