Toyota Takes First and Second Place from Alpine in the Final Hour of the 6 Hours of Fuji

Toyota won the 6 Hours of Fuji, the sixth round of the World Endurance Championship, after a six-hour race in which Alpine seemed headed for a first-and-second finish for nearly the entire afternoon. The change came in the final hour, when the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid made a stop without changing tires to avoid losing track position, which allowed Ryo Hirakawa to finish ahead of the No. 36 Alpine A424, shared by Victor Martins and Jules Gounon.

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The race was held at the Fuji circuit in Japan, where Toyota competes as the home team and where it has won most of the editions the WEC has organized since 2012. The weekend was shaped by rain from Saturday onward, to the point that qualifying could not be run and the grid was set using the best times from free practice. Martins had been fastest in the No. 36 in the only session run in the dry, so that car started at the front in Hypercar, followed by the second Alpine, the No. 35 of Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi, and by the No. 007 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble, which received a two-position penalty for contact during practice and started fourth.

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Alpine arrived at Fuji already racing its final season in the WEC, and did so with a lineup change compared to Austin. Gounon and Martins paired again in the No. 36, and Habsburg and Milesi in the No. 35, this time without Frédéric Makowiecki or António Félix da Costa, who had been the third driver in each car at the previous round. The French team thus returned to the two-drivers-per-car format it uses at most six-hour events, and arrived in Japan with a real chance to finish with both cars at the front, a result that would have been the highest possible send-off for a team saying goodbye to the category and which had already taken a third place at Austin with the No. 35.

Gounon controlled the No. 36 from the start and kept it at the front until the first stop, when he handed the wheel to Martins. In LMGT3, the first lap produced a multi-car crash at turn one that knocked the No. 88 Ford Mustang of Proton Competition and the No. 61 Mercedes-AMG of Iron Lynx out of the race, and complicated several others, including the No. 78 Lexus of Akkodis ASP, whose driver Tom Van Rompuy received a five-second penalty for causing the accident, and the No. 92 Porsche of The Bend Manthey, which had to pit for repairs and lost ground to the rest of the field. The No. 58 McLaren of Finn Gehrsitz took advantage of the early chaos to open a lead of nearly a minute before the first round of stops, and after handing the car over to Alexander West, the McLaren stayed at the front for much of the first hour.

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The second hour brought the first safety car intervention, caused by the crash between the No. 23 Aston Martin of Heart of Racing and the No. 94 Peugeot, which later received a five-second penalty. That neutralization bunched the field back up and allowed the No. 91 Porsche of Manthey DK Engineering, which had started from the back, to reach the LMGT3 lead with James Cottingham. When Cottingham handed the car to Timur Boguslavskiy, shortly before the two-hour mark, the No. 77 Ford Mustang of Eric Powell took the lead, with the No. 34 Corvette of Racing Team Turkey by TF and the No. 69 BMW of Team WRT behind. In Hypercar, the same safety car benefited the No. 7 Toyota, which had been compromised early in the race by a slow puncture on the front-left tire and by a spin from Nyck de Vries, with contact against the No. 35 Alpine as he tried to pass it, costing him around 15 seconds.

The halfway point brought changes within Alpine itself, with Habsburg passing Martins to take control of the No. 35, a common swap between the French team's two cars since both score points separately in the championship. A difficult afternoon for Ferrari also began there. The No. 51 of James Calado had contact with the No. 33 Corvette, and minutes later the No. 20 BMW suffered a heavy puncture after contact with the Ferrari in the same corner, with the tire coming off the rim and an emergency stop that took it out of the fight for points in the manufacturers' championship. The No. 93 Peugeot also retired at the start of the third hour, when Paul Di Resta had to park the car due to a gearbox problem. In LMGT3, the No. 33 Corvette of TF Sport took control of the class with Jonny Edgar, following the early work of Ben Keating.

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The fourth hour opened the fight for victory in Hypercar. Martins began losing grip on a set of soft tires, and the No. 35 passed him at the first corner. After the next round of stops, the No. 007 Aston Martin of Tincknell and Gamble came out ahead of the two Alpines and briefly led the race, but Gamble crossed the white line at the pit entry during his stop and received a drive-through penalty that dropped him to seventh. With that penalty, Alpine regained first and second place, with Gounon leading and Milesi second. The No. 009 Aston Martin of Alex Riberas moved up to third. Ferrari suffered another setback when the No. 50 lost a lap due to a failure in the air jack system during a stop and eventually retired. In LMGT3, the No. 10 McLaren of Garage 59, with Marvin Kirchhöfer, took the lead from the No. 33 Corvette, and the No. 78 Lexus, now recovered from the early penalty, climbed to third.

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In the fifth hour, with the Aston Martin penalty already served, Alpine was back in control of the race with Gounon and Martins in the No. 36 ahead of Milesi and Habsburg in the No. 35, with both French team cars now in position to close out the weekend with the result they were looking for. The No. 15 BMW began recovering ground after the difficult afternoon for the No. 20, and in LMGT3 the No. 10 McLaren, the BMW, the Corvettes, and the Porsches reached the final hour separated by different pit-stop decisions, with track position as the determining factor and several investigations still pending that would leave the class's final result unresolved in the immediate term.

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The final hour settled the fight in Hypercar. Toyota took advantage of another safety car intervention to bring the No. 8 into the pits without changing tires, a stop designed solely to preserve track position for the finish. When the race returned to green flag, Hirakawa was already ahead, and the No. 36 Alpine was left behind with no margin to pass him, meaning Alpine lost in the final minutes the result it had held for nearly the entire afternoon.

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Toyota finished first with Hirakawa, Brendon Hartley, and Sébastien Buemi, another victory at Fuji, the tenth since the series began visiting the circuit. The No. 36 Alpine finished second, and the No. 15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello, and Kevin Magnussen finished third, with the other Alpine, the No. 35, in fourth. In LMGT3, the result remains provisional pending stewards' rulings on the investigations opened during the afternoon, including the one affecting the No. 12 Cadillac for a pit infringement. At the close of the broadcast, the No. 32 BMW M4 of Team WRT led the class, ahead of the No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage of Heart of Racing Team and the No. 34 Corvette of Racing Team Turkey by TF.

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The result also leaves a different trend from what had been seen in the two previous editions of Fuji, where no car starting from the top spot finished in the top three at the finish. The No. 36 Alpine, which had been fastest in practice and started at the front, did this time finish in the top three, though it was left without the win in the final minutes. The Japanese layout, at 4.563 kilometers, with a straight where cars exceed 330 kilometers per hour and a more demanding final sector to drive, helps explain why the result ended up depending more on each team's decisions in the final hour than on where each car started.

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Toyota had arrived at Fuji with a nine-point lead over BMW in the manufacturers' championship, after losing at Austin a victory that was practically decided by a hydraulic failure in the No. 7 with 11 minutes remaining, so the result in Japan widens that gap before the final two rounds of the season. For Alpine, which is racing its final year in the WEC, the second and fourth places at Fuji leave a different taste from what the team was looking for, having held both cars at the front for much of the day and ending the round without the result with which it would have best closed out its time in the category.

The championship continues on October 18 with the 6 Hours of Barcelona, the penultimate round of the calendar, where Toyota will look to manage the lead it regained in Japan, while BMW and Ferrari need stronger results to avoid being knocked out of the fight before the season's final race.

WEC — 6 Hours of Fuji 2026

Pos	p.class	class	#	drivers	team	car	laps	Gap
1	1	HYPERCAR	#8	Sébastien Buemi Brendon Hartley Ryo Hirakawa	Toyota Racing	Toyota TR010 Hybrid	203	-
2	2	HYPERCAR	#36	Jules Gounon Victor Martins	Alpine Endurance Team	Alpine A424	203	0.591
3	3	HYPERCAR	#15	Kevin Magnussen Raffaele Marciello Dries Vanthoor	BMW M Team WRT	BMW M Hybrid V8	203	6.415
4	4	HYPERCAR	#35	Charles Milesi Ferdinand Habsburg	Alpine Endurance Team	Alpine A424	203	7.699
5	5	HYPERCAR	#38	Earl Bamber Sébastien Bourdais Jack Aitken	Cadillac Hertz Team Jota	Cadillac V-Series.R	203	8.142
6	6	HYPERCAR	#94	Loïc Duval Malthe Jakobsen Théo Pourchaire	Peugeot Totalenergies	Peugeot 9X8	203	10.176
7	7	HYPERCAR	#12	Will Stevens Norman Nato	Cadillac Hertz Team Jota	Cadillac V-Series.R	203	13.497
8	8	HYPERCAR	#7	Mike Conway Kamui Kobayashi Nyck De Vries	Toyota Racing	Toyota TR010 Hybrid	203	14.206
9	9	HYPERCAR	#009	Alex Riberas Marco Sørensen	Aston Martin Thor Team	Aston Martin Valkyrie	203	24.237
10	10	HYPERCAR	#51	Alessandro Pier Guidi James Calado Antonio Giovinazzi	Ferrari AF Corse	Ferrari 499P	203	26.443
11	11	HYPERCAR	#19	Mathieu Jaminet Paul-loup Chatin Daniel Juncadella	Genesis Magma Racing	Genesis GMR-001-Hypercar	203	45.525
12	12	HYPERCAR	#83	Yifei Ye Robert Kubica Philip Hanson	AF Corse	Ferrari 499P	202	1 Lap
13	13	HYPERCAR	#20	Robin Frijns René Rast Sheldon Van Der Linde	BMW M Team WRT	BMW M Hybrid V8	202	1 Lap
14	14	HYPERCAR	#007	Harry Tincknell Tom Gamble	Aston Martin Thor Team	Aston Martin Valkyrie	202	1 Lap
15	15	HYPERCAR	#17	André Lotterer Luis Felipe Derani Mathys Jaubert	Genesis Magma Racing	Genesis GMR-001-Hypercar	202	1 Lap
16	1	LMGT3	#32	Darren Leung Sean Gelael Augusto Farfus	Team WRT	BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo	187	-
17	2	LMGT3	#27	Ian James Zacharie Robichon Mattia Drudi	Heart of Racing Team	Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3	187	1.062
18	3	LMGT3	#34	Peter Dempsey Salih Yoluç Charlie Eastwood	Racing Team Turkey by TF	Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R	187	4.676
19	4	LMGT3	#54	Thomas Flohr Francesco Castellacci Davide Rigon	Vista AF Corse	Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo	187	6.601
20	5	LMGT3	#33	Ben Keating Jonny Edgar Nicky Catsburg	TF Sport	Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R	187	10.136
21	6	LMGT3	#69	Anthony Mcintosh Parker Thompson Daniel Harper	Team WRT	BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo	187	12.389
22	7	LMGT3	#91	James Cottingham Timur Boguslavskiy Ayhancan Güven	Manthey DK Engineering	Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3	187	12.402
23	8	LMGT3	#10	Antares Au Thomas Fleming Marvin Kirchhöfer	Garage 59	McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo	187	13.194
24	9	LMGT3	#77	Eric Powell Ben Tuck Sebastian Priaulx	Proton Competition	Ford Mustang LMGT3	187	23.051
25	10	LMGT3	#78	Tom Van Rompuy Hadrien David Esteban Masson	Akkodis ASP Team	Lexus RC F LMGT3	187	34.218
26	11	LMGT3	#87	Petru Umbrärescu Clemens Schmid José María López	Akkodis ASP Team	Lexus RC F LMGT3	185	2 Laps
27	12	LMGT3	#92	Yasser Shahin Riccardo Pera Richard Lietz	The Bend Manthey	Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3	181	6 Laps
28	13	LMGT3	#79	Johannes Zelger Matteo Cressoni Lin Hodenius	Iron Lynx	Mercedes-AMG LMGT3	178	9 Laps
29	14	LMGT3	#21	François Hériau Simon Mann Alessio Rovera	Vista AF Corse	Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo	184	3 Laps
30	15	LMGT3	#58	Alexander West Finn Gehrsitz Benjamin Goethe	Garage 59	McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo	160	27 Laps
31	16	HYPERCAR	#50	Antonio Fuoco Miguel Molina Nicklas Nielsen	Ferrari AF Corse	Ferrari 499P	145	58 Laps
32	17	HYPERCAR	#93	Paul Di Resta Stoffel Vandoorne Nick Cassidy	Peugeot Totalenergies	Peugeot 9X8	67	136 Laps
33	16	LMGT3	#23	Gray Newell Eduardo Barrichello Jonny Adam	Heart of Racing Team	Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3	37	150 Laps
34	17	LMGT3	#88	Stefano Gattuso Giammarco Levorato Logan Sargeant	Proton Competition	Ford Mustang LMGT3	1	186 Laps
35	18	LMGT3	#61	Martin Berry Rui Andrade Maxime Martin	Iron Lynx	Mercedes-AMG LMGT3	1	186 Laps