{"id":2086,"date":"2026-09-27T08:51:58","date_gmt":"2026-09-27T08:51:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/?p=2086"},"modified":"2026-09-27T08:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-09-27T08:52:08","slug":"wec-fuji-2026-toyota-wins-home-race-after-late-alpine-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wec-fuji-2026-toyota-wins-home-race-after-late-alpine-battle\/","title":{"rendered":"WEC Fuji 2026: Toyota Wins Home Race After Late Alpine Battle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Toyota claimed victory in the 6 Hours of Fuji 2026<\/strong>, producing a dramatic late-race turnaround to defeat Alpine in front of its home crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Ryo Hirakawa, Brendon Hartley and S\u00e9bastien Buemi<\/strong> crossed the finish line just 0.591 seconds ahead of the Alpine #36 driven by Victor Martins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The result gives Toyota an important home victory and puts the #8 crew at the top of the championship standings with two rounds remaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alpine controls the opening stages<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Alpine started the race from pole position after qualifying was cancelled because of poor weather conditions. The #36 Alpine A424 shared the front row with the sister #35 car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French manufacturer controlled much of the opening part of the race, with the two Alpine cars regularly occupying the leading positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toyota initially struggled to match the pace of the Alpine cars. The #7 GR010 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries also lost ground after receiving a drive-through penalty for speeding during a Full Course Yellow period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the race progressed, however, Toyota remained within striking distance while several safety-car and neutralisation periods repeatedly changed the strategic picture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safety Car changes everything<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The decisive moment came with around one hour remaining.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An accident involving Finn Gehrsitz’s McLaren 720S GT3 Evo<\/strong> and the Aston Martin of Mattia Drudi forced race control to deploy the Safety Car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The neutralisation created an opportunity for the leading teams to alter their strategies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toyota made a crucial decision with the #8 car, opting for a partial energy refill rather than a full recharge. The strategy allowed Hirakawa to gain several positions when the race returned to green-flag conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The BMW #15 adopted a similar approach, while the Alpine cars lost track position during the pit-stop sequence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martins launches a late charge<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

With around 20 minutes remaining, Victor Martins began a determined recovery<\/strong> in the Alpine #36.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The French driver quickly moved past the Aston Martin #009 and the sister Alpine #35 before attacking the BMW #15 of Dries Vanthoor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Martins eventually completed the move and moved into second place, reducing the gap to Hirakawa at the front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toyota appeared vulnerable as the Alpine closed in, with traffic from the LMGT3 field further reducing the gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Toyota holds on<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Martins eventually brought the Alpine to within less than a second of the Toyota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hirakawa, however, kept his composure and managed the final laps perfectly. The Japanese driver avoided mistakes and u<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toyota claimed victory in the 6 Hours of Fuji 2026, producing a dramatic late-race turnaround to defeat Alpine in front of its home crowd. The #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Ryo Hirakawa, Brendon Hartley and S\u00e9bastien Buemi crossed the finish line just 0.591 seconds ahead of the Alpine #36 driven by Victor Martins. The result […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2087,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wec"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2088,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2086\/revisions\/2088"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2087"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}