That is how you turn a rough weekend around. Starting down in 14th on the grid, the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 machine looked entirely out of contention before a chaotic finish blew the race wide open at Fuji Speedway. Faultless driving from Darren Leung and Sean Gelael kept the car in the fight, but it was Augusto Farfus who delivered a stunning, decisive charge when it mattered most.
The race turned on its head when a late incident at Turn One involving the #58 McLaren of Finn Gehrsitz brought out the Safety Car. That interruption erased the gaps and completely scrambled the order. Up front, Racing Team Turkey rolled the dice by skipping fresh Goodyear tyres during their final pit stop, thrusting Charlie Eastwood into the lead just ahead of Nicky Catsburg in the championship-leading #33 TF Sport Corvette.
When the green flag finally waved with less than 20 minutes remaining, Farfus found himself sitting in sixth place. What followed was an absolute masterclass. The Brazilian veteran wasted no time, slicing past the #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche, the surviving #10 Garage 59 McLaren, and the #77 Proton Competition Ford Mustang in a matter of laps. Next on his hit list was Catsburg, whom he smoothly dispatched before turning his sights on the leader.
Eastwood fought hard, but he was ultimately powerless against the charging BMW. Farfus executed a robust, decisive move at Turn 10 to grab the lead. Still, the job was far from finished. Mattia Drudi had carved his way through in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage, recovering brilliantly from a puncture caused by that same late Safety Car incident involving Gehrsitz. Drudi hounded the leader all the way to the end, but Farfus held firm to take the checkered flag by just 1.062 seconds.
"These guys (Leung and Gelael) did a brilliant job, and I had a car advantage to some of the cars as they only half set (of new tyres)," Farfus said after the race. "I got out of the pits in P6 or P7. The safety car took way longer than I expected, and I wanted to go racing, but the safety car was not cleaning up. It finally went green, and I knew that I had to make most of my new tyres."
Behind the frantic battle for the win, Eastwood shared third place with teammates Peter Dempsey and Salih Yoluc. A late charge from Davide Rigon pushed the #54 Ferrari 296—shared with Thomas Flohr and Francesco Castellacci—into fourth place, just ahead of the #33 Corvette. Despite missing out on the victory, that fifth-place finish for Catsburg, Ben Keating, and Jonny Edgar extended TF Sport’s championship lead to 24 points, while Edgar holds a four-point advantage over teammate Catsburg in the standings.
The day had started with pure chaos, marked by a massive multi-car melee at the very first corner that wiped out the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang and the #61 Iron Lynx Mercedes, while forcing the #92 Porsche into the pits for repairs. There was further heartbreak for the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin when Gray Newell was forced off track by the #94 Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8, resulting in an immediate retirement. Meanwhile, a late issue dashed the hopes of the #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari, dropping them from second down to fourth in the championship standings. To round out the individual accolades, Tom Fleming of the #10 Garage 59 squad picked up the Goodyear Wingfoot award after a series of noteworthy stints.
