Alpine will start from pole position at the 6 Hours of Fuji

Rain prevented the 6 Hours of Fuji qualifying session from taking place, the sixth round of the World Endurance Championship, and the starting grid was set using the times recorded in free practice, with the No. 36 Alpine A424 of Victor Martins and Jules Gounon at the front in the Hypercar class.

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The session began with the first phase of LMGT3 on a completely wet track, and within minutes François Hériau lost control of the No. 21 Ferrari 296 of Vista AF Corse on the exit of turn 1, apparently due to aquaplaning, and ended up against the wall at turn 2. Hériau got out on his own, but the incident forced activity to be stopped with a red flag, and with the rain showing no sign of letting up, race direction chose to cancel the rest of the program, which nullified the LMGT3 Hyperpole and both Hypercar sessions.

In the absence of qualifying times, the regulations state that the grid is set using the best combined practice time, and that place corresponds to Friday's second free practice session, the only one run in the dry all weekend. There, Martins had set the fastest time in the No. 36 Alpine, just a few hundredths ahead of the No. 007 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Tom Gamble, with the second Alpine, the No. 35 of Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi, in third place.

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In LMGT3, the same criterion benefited the No. 77 Ford Mustang GT3 of Proton Competition, with Ben Tuck, Eric Powell, and Sebastian Priaulx, which had been fastest in that same session, followed by the No. 79 Mercedes-AMG of Iron Lynx with Johannes Zelger, Lin Hodenius, and Matteo Cressoni, and by the No. 78 Lexus of Akkodis ASP, which is looking for a strong result for the Japanese brand on home soil. The second Iron Lynx Mercedes, with Rui Andrade, Maxime Martin, and Martin Berry, will start fourth, ahead of the second Akkodis Lexus and the No. 34 Corvette of Racing Team Turkey by TF. The No. 33 Corvette of TF Sport, which leads the class championship, was not among the fastest in that dry session, though it improved its pace in Saturday's wet session; the two Manthey Porsches, meanwhile, were relegated in both sessions.

The weekend's unpredictability was again evident the following day, when Saturday's practice was once more run in the rain and Martins was again fastest, this time by an even smaller margin over the No. 007 Aston Martin, which had come close but suffered side damage from contact with the No. 27 Aston Martin of Heart of Racing in LMGT3. Harry Tincknell and Gamble were able to rejoin and finished that session second, with the No. 009 of Marco Sorensen and Alex Riberas third. In LMGT3, that same wet session was led by Charlie Eastwood in the Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette, ahead of Team WRT's Parker Thompson and the No. 88 Ford Mustang of Proton Competition.

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The No. 36 Alpine thus heads into Sunday backed by having been fastest both in the only dry practice and in the last one on a wet track, though that fact guarantees little at Fuji. In the two previous editions of the event, no car that started from the top spot finished in the top three at the end. In 2024, the No. 2 Cadillac of Alex Lynn started at the front, but the win went to the No. 6 Porsche, which had started fifth, and in 2025 Lynn repeated that position in the No. 12 Cadillac and finished sixth; the No. 35 Alpine of Milesi, Habsburg, and Paul-Loup Chatin won after starting ninth.

That result last year was also Alpine's first victory at Fuji and came exactly on the 100th race in WEC history, a precedent that gives particular weight to the lack of guarantees that starting at the front offers at this track. For Toyota, on the other hand, the date has a different value because it races at home, at a circuit where it has won nine of the twelve races the WEC has held there since the series began visiting Fuji.

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The race will be run on Sunday at eleven in the morning, local time, on the 4.563-kilometer, 16-turn layout, which combines a 1.475-kilometer straight where cars exceed 330 kilometers per hour with a much more technical final sector, at a time of year when the weather in the area often changes without warning. With Toyota looking to make the most of racing at home, Alpine trying to repeat last year's result, and Aston Martin quick in both sessions that were held, what happens on Sunday will depend more on the race itself than on the starting position.

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The result will also weigh on the manufacturers' championship, where Toyota arrived at this round with 140 points, just nine ahead of BMW, which has 131, with Ferrari in third place with 114 and still with a chance to insert itself fully into the fight before the season ends.