The Six Hours of Fuji has typically been an event dominated by the hometown heroes Toyota in the World Endurance Championship.
Heading into the 2024 race, the Japanese manufacturer had won all but one event held at the circuit since 2012, including a streak of six consecutive victories, making it their most successful track.
Toyota’s dominance is evidenced further by six one-two finishes with their two Hypercars at Fuji, and despite being affected by the WEC’s Balance of Performance this year, the team went into the race as the favourites to take the win.
However, the race would turn out to be a disaster for the defending champions, as it marked only the second time that both the Toyota GR010 Hybrids finished off the podium at the event.
Stephen Kilbey says Toyota ‘still have the best car’ despite Fuji disaster
In fact, it would be much worse than that, as Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway in the No. 7 car retired from the race after a collision with Matt Campbell in the No. 5 Porsche.
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Sebastien Buemi, Brendan Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa in the No. 8 faired little better. Hirakawa was hit with a drive-through penalty for ignoring blue flags, leaving the trio to limp home in 10th.
Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor in the No. 6 Porsche claimed their second win of the season – the only car to win one than one race so far – with the No. 15 BMW and No. 36 Alpine registering their first podiums of the season with second and third respectively.
While Toyota’s poor result was unusual by their standards, speaking on The Marshall Pruett Podcast, Stephen Kilbey explained why he liked the result and why Toyota will not mind being under pressure as the other manufacturers begin to close the gap.
“You’re seeing what Toyota can do when they’re under pressure, and the pressure was on in that race and in front of the home fans, they needed a big result to close the championship up, and just, on this occasion, didn’t go their way at all and pretty much entirely down to their own making,” he said.
“But I like this. We’ve seen Toyota controlling WEC races for years and years and years and they’ve been waiting, they were telling us for years they’ve been waiting for competition.
“Well now it’s here, now they’ve been put under immense pressure by multiple manufacturers every week. I still think, top to bottom, it’s the best car in the field, it’s the best team in the field, just the experience they’ve got and they’ve got the driving talent.
“But, we are seeing the cracks starting to show and it’s better for the championship to see just how much better some of these other teams are getting.”
Porsche have one hand on the Drivers’ Championship trophy heading into Bahrain
Following their second win of the season, Estre, Lotterer and Vanthoor are pretty much nailed on for the 2024 WEC title.
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After the No. 7 Toyota’s retirement, Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicolas Nielsen in the No. 50 Ferrari have moved into second, albeit 35 points behind the Porsche.
With the Eight Hours of Bahrain concluding the season and a maximum of 39 points are up for grabs, it will take some feat for the Ferrari to come out victorious – even more so for the Toyota with Kobayashi and de Vries 37 points behind.
The three manufacturers look set to take it to the wire in the final race, as Porsche hold a 10-point lead over Toyota in the Manufacturers’ Championship, with Ferrari 27 points back in third.