Toyota secured their 10th home soil success at the 6 Hours of Fuji on 27 September, executing a brilliant late strategy call that vaulted them to the front in the final hour and propelled Ryō Hirakawa, Sébastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley to the summit of the FIA World Endurance Championship standings.
For five hours, Alpine Endurance Team looked destined to lock out the top two spots on the podium after locking down the front row of the grid at Fuji Speedway. The two French prototypes controlled the action until a late safety car intervention upended the order, triggered by a sizeable accident for the #58 Garage 59 LMGT3 McLaren involving Finn Gehrsitz, who thankfully emerged unscathed.
I was lucky I had a lapped BMW ahead, because that gave me a kind of reference, and I had the other BMW just behind to block the Alpine.
With the field pitting en masse, Toyota rolled the dice. The team elected not to change tyres and to short-fuel Hirakawa in the #8 GR010 Hybrid Hypercar, which had been running in sixth position after an earlier spin when Hartley was tipped around by Harry Tincknell approaching Turn One. Championship challenger BMW also took a risk by leaving Dries Vanthoor on used rubber in the #15 M Hybrid V8, while Alpine opted for fresh Michelins for Victor Martins in the #36 car and two new left-hand-side tyres for Charles Milesi in the sister #35 A424.
That strategy drop placed Milesi third and Martins fifth behind Hirakawa and Vanthoor, with Aston Martin THOR Team’s Marco Sørensen sandwiched between them. At the restart with just 20 minutes remaining, Martins charged past Sørensen before Milesi let him through. The rookie quickly relieved Vanthoor of second and hunted down Hirakawa, but the Japanese driver put up a sublime defence to secure the #8 crew’s second win of the 2026 campaign and Toyota’s first at Fuji in three years.
"The re-start was really tricky, with the conditions changing and being on cold tyres on a slightly damp track," Hirakawa said after the race. "I was lucky I had a lapped BMW ahead, because that gave me a kind of reference, and I had the other BMW just behind to block the Alpine."
Rounding out the podium finishers were the #36 Alpine and #15 BMW. Meanwhile, in LMGT3, Team WRT’s #32 BMW M4 Evo claimed its first victory of the season after a frantic late battle, driven by Augusto Farfus, Sean Gelael and Darren Leung. The championship now heads to the 6 Hours of Barcelona on 16-18 October.
