Frustration for Toyota Gazoo Racing at the 6 Hours of Fuji

Toyota Gazoo Racing’s winning run on home ground came to an end in a dramatic 6 Hours of Fuji yesterday (15 September), the penultimate round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).

An intense team effort, committed driving and bold strategy put the GR010 Hybrids in the fight for victory despite their revised power and weight parameters, but the team’s record of six consecutive wins at the Japanese circuit ultimately ended in frustration.

In front of 65,800 enthusiastic fans, a battling drive from Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa in their No8 GR010 Hybrid looked to have earned a podium finish until a late penalty dropped them down to 10^th place.

The No7 GR010 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries was leading with two hours to go but was forced to retire due to accident damage. That effectively ends the Kobayashi and de Vries’s World Championship challenge with one race remaining.

The team found themselves on the back foot from the race’s opening stages. Either side of a lap-two safety car, Buemi dropped from second to fourth while Conway also lost ground from fourth on the grid, and spent the first stint in fifth, behind the No8.

Further position changes saw the second hour end with Conway still in fifth and Buemi sixth. Those positions were swapped soon after when the No7 suffered tyre degradation, causing it to pit earlier than planned. De Vries took over while Hartley replaced Buemi shortly afterwards.

Despite the tough start, the team’s fuel and tyre strategy started to pay off. After half distance, de Vries overtook the No15 BMW and the No50 Ferrari, then overhauled the No6 Porsche in the pits to lead the race. The No8 also made progress and Hartley boldly passed two Ferraris before handing over to Hirakawa, who joined the podium fight.

After almost four hours of intense competition, Kobayashi took over for two stints to hunt down victory, with both cars now in a stronger strategic position in terms of fuel and tyres than their rivals. But a virtual safety car early in the fifth hour took away that advantage, giving all Hypercars the chance to pit and lose less time compared to doing so under racing conditions.

A 90-minute sprint to the flag saw Hirakawa initially hold third before the No35 Alpine overtook. The No7 fared worse when Kobayashi and the No5 Porsche made contact in the battle for eighth. Damage to the rear suspension and bodywork could not be repaired in time, so the car was retired with an hour remaining.

Hirakawa pushed hard to bring the No8 back onto the podium in the final hour, overtaking both JOTA Porsches and then moving into a comfortable third after a penalty for the No35 Alpine. But with 16 minutes to go, the No8 incurred its own drive-through penalty, for an incident with the leading No6 Porsche, and Hirakawa finished 10^th, 58.879secs behind the winner.

Despite the frustrating result, the team are already focused on retaining their manufacturers’ title in a showdown in Bahrain on 2 November when the fight for the World Championship will be concluded. Toyota Gazoo Racing are just 10 points behind leaders Porsche going into the eighth and final race of 2024.

Team quotes
Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car No7): “It was a very tough race. The second safety car brought us into a difficult situation. After that I tried to fight with Porsche No5 for a couple of laps, but our lack of straight-line speed was clear, so he tried to overtake through the first three turns. On the inside of turn three we both committed to the corner in the same moment and could not avoid contact. Unfortunately, we then had another contact, and the damage was too heavy to repair. It definitely was not our day, and I feel sorry for our home fans who supported us so much. Hopefully we will come back strong for the last race in Bahrain.”

Mike Conway (driver, car No7): “It’s been a pretty rough day on both cars. Unfortunately for car No7 we had contact and the car was not repairable, so we didn’t score any points which is bad for our drivers’ championship, and as a team we didn’t score well for the manufacturers’ either. It’s obviously frustrating and not the result we wanted for our home fans and all the partners and Toyota colleagues who support us here. But there is one round to go and it’s a longer race, with more points available, so we will do our best to come back fighting.”

Nyck de Vries (driver, car No7): “It is a tough pill to swallow for the whole team. It has been hard all weekend. We were aware that our race pace was not good enough to challenge at the front based on our speed alone and that we needed to execute the best possible race to score good points for both championships. We had a great strategy to do just that but unfortunately due to the race circumstances, we didn’t pull it off. That is a real pity.”

Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car No8): “It was a bit of a disaster for us. We had a solid start, considering we were a bit slower than our rivals. I had no chance to race into turn one because the acceleration of the other cars was much better. But we came back into it, then got unlucky with the safety car. Without the drive-through penalty we would have finished on the podium which would have been an acceptable result. We’ll analyse everything, regroup and come back stronger in Bahrain.”

Brendon Hartley (driver, car No8): “We had a pretty clean race. Séb did a great job looking after the tyres which gave us a real chance based on our strategy. We didn’t have the pace of our competitors, but we did our best. A big thanks to the team because everyone fought hard. It was an important race for us and in the end we came up short for many different reasons. But we will keep our heads up and fight back in Bahrain for the manufacturers’ championship. Huge thanks to everyone here in Japan who has supported us this week, the Toyota colleagues, partners and all the fans.”

Ryo Hirakawa (driver, car No8): “Obviously it is a really disappointing day. We wanted to have a good race in front of our fans and partners, but it didn’t turn out that way. We tried everything and at one point it looked promising, but then things went against us. There is one race remaining and hopefully we can finish on a high by winning the championship; we are going to keep fighting. Thanks to the team for their hard work all week, and special thanks to our partners and fans for all the support.

6 Hours of Fuji – result 

ENDS