Toyota's 8 car put the rest of the field to the sword at the Fuji FIAWEC round to catch up to Alpine in the championship 🇯🇵 📝 gazzasportscars explains how Toyota mastered Fuji once again ⬇️
There’s nothing unusual in Toyota winning a World Endurance Championship round at Fuji. Victory for Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa last weekend was the eighth in nine attempts since the rebirth of the series in 2012. What was atypical on Sunday was that they pretty much destroyed their team-mates in the sister GR010 HYBRID on the way to one-minute winning margin at the head of a Toyota 1-2.
The drivers of #7 struggled with oversteer, which was exacerbated on the second stint on a set of Michelin tyre and doubly so as the temperatures rose further in the afternoon. Hartley had the lead up into double figures by the time he stopped for the first time, and when he came in to hand over to Hirakawa he was more than half a minute to the good. The race was as good as over.
Or at least Toyota’s rivals were nowhere in terms of the overall result. Vasselon insisted straight after the race that Alpine and Peugeot were far from uncompetitive in terms of outright performance, and analysis of the full race shows that he wasn’t trying to fly some kind of political kite.
“We had a great car, but we were too slow overall,” said Vaxiviere, who brought the Alpine to the finish. “Clearly, we didn’t have the pace to fight. I don’t want to talk about BoP, but we can’t be satisfied with our race. It’s still cool that we will arrive in Bahrain equal on points [at the head of the championship].”Motorsport Images
The end of Peugeot’s chances of going home with some silverware was signalled by a stream of oil smoke from the back of the car halfway through hour three. The oil was coming out of a plug in the oil system. “Nothing dramatic,” said Olivier Jansonnie, technical director of the 9X8, “but the consequences were quite big.”
Rossiter and his co-drivers went home unrewarded for their efforts: they came home in 20th place. The sister Peugeot ended up fourth and was the quicker of the two cars over the second half of the race after Vergne haemorrhaged time over the first two stints. The team put it down to a tyre issue without elaborating.Photo by: Masahide Kamio
"When you are trying to win a championship, the last thing you want to be doing is racing out of the pits for the lead and banging wheels into Turn 1"But Jota’s decision to go onto aggressive fuel-save regime to try to save a pitstop had logic to it. The crew of the #38 ORECA arrived in Fuji with a 19-point lead in the championship and much to lose in a tooth-and-nail fight with the WRT car languishing down in fifth in the points.
Vanthoor, standing in for DTM-contesting Rene Rast, lost time during his double when he got hemmed in during his pitstop, but apart from that the only worry for WRT team was if Jota or Prema, which also opted to save fuel, got the required yellow. It was still much closer than it looked in the results after Stevens pitted #38 with four laps to go. The victorious Toyota finished between the top two in P2, meaning the winner completed a lap more the chasing car.
The Brit got past Fuoco, who drove the final four stints in the second Ferrari, with 50 minutes to go, though was never more than a second ahead over the remainder of the race. It was unclear if a delay of around three seconds for Fuoco when an airline snagged on the rear wing at his final stop had any effect on the outcome.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
WEC Fuji: Toyota #8 crew boost title hopes with victoryThe FIAWEC is poised for a head-to-head showdown between TGR_WEC and Alpine in Bahrain after the Japanese manufacturer's 8 led home a 1-2 at Fuji. Meanwhile the 31 followWRT ORECA snared LMP2 honours, while 51 FerrariRaces took GTE Pro spoils ⬇️
Read more »
WEC: Brendon Hartley "surprised" by gap to #7 Toyota at FujiToyota driver Brendon Hartley admits he was “surprised” at the gap the Fuji-winning 8 crew was able to pull out over the sister 7 car in Sunday’s penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.
Read more »
Fuji WEC: Toyota ties Alpine on points with dominant winToyota romped to a dominant 1-2 finish in Sunday’s penultimate round of the FIA World Endurance Championship season at Fuji, as Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley boosted their title hopes with a win.
Read more »
Hartley "surprised" by pace gap between Toyotas at FujiToyota driver Brendon Hartley admits he was “surprised” at the gap the Fuji-winning 8 crew was able to pull out over the sister 7 car in Sunday’s penultimate round of the World Endurance Championship.
Read more »
The Toyota domination on home turf that sets up a WEC title showdownWhile Toyota often dominates on home soil in the World Endurance Championship, the margin of victory for the 8 car over the sister 7 runner ensured it had the perfect weekend playing catch-up against Alpine. Here’s how Toyota mastered Fuji once again to set up a thrilling finale in Bahrain
Read more »