Porsche has returned to the top of the World Endurance Manufacturers’ Championship and upstaged local hopes for Toyota in the 6 Hours of Fuji over the weekend.
Drivers’ Championship leaders Kevin Estre, Andre Lotterer and Laurens Vanthoor powered from fifth on the grid to take their fifth podium and second win of the season, ahead of the BMW M Hybrid V8 of Marcel Wittman, Raffaelle Marciello and Dries Vanthoor.
The trio’s dominant 16-second victory puts them 35 points clear of Ferrari’s Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen in the Drivers’ Championship, with only 39 remaining in play. That means just an eighth-place finish in Bahrain – irrespective of any other result – will be sufficient to seal the deal.
There was heartbreak for the local crowd of nearly 70,000 people, whose hopes for Toyota were dashed firstly when Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 GR010 Hybrid and Matt Campbell in the #5 Porsche came together on lap 163, putting both cars out on the spot, and then again when Ryo Hirakawa was served with a drive-through penalty in the #8 in the closing stages.
As a result, New Zealander Brendon Hartley’s #8 team finished 10th, which knocks the reigning driver’s champions out of 2024 title contention.
While Kobayashi and Nyck De Vries remain mathematical possibilities for the drivers’ title, Toyota’s biggest hopes now lie in the Manufacturers’ Championship. They enter the season finale only 10 points behind Porsche.
Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn endured similar frustrations in Cadillac Racing’s V-Series.R.
Lynn qualified on pole for the race, and the team led the opening 42 laps. The #6 Porsche leapfrogged them during the first pit window before the team fell victim to several errors throughout the race to finish well outside of contention.
Once in front after the first round of stops, the #6 Porsche crew were dominant, artfully managing several safety car periods and exploiting an alternative strategy to the majority of the 18-strong Hypercar field.
The Porsche crew always looked the most likely to win, with Lotterer getting the better of Nielsen’s Ferrari mid-race and Estre surviving both a lunge from a lapped Ryo Hirakawa and a slippery brake pedal that sent him deep into Turn 1 in the final hour to stay in front.
The #36 Alpine of Mick Schumacher, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxiviere completed the overall podium, with Mick Schumacher producing a superb final stint to overhaul both Oliver Rasmussen and Norman Nato for third.
However, Hertz Team JOTA still had cause for celebration, as the British outfit clinched the FIA World Cup for Hypercar Teams.
The 2024 World Endurance Championship season concludes with the 8 Hours of Bahrain on October 31- November 2.
Header Image: Photo Javier Jimenez / DPPI (Supplied WEC)
