Porsche #6 in the lane for their final stop of the day. Ferrari 499P #50 to the pit lane as well for their final stop. Both cars are in, #50 and #51, double stacked? Yes. Both crews working on their cars. Gustavo Menezes in the lane as well. Purple first sector and a best second sector for someone. Who is the driver? Is that Kevin Estre? I think so. It has to be. Toyota #7 making its final pit stop as well. So, Brendon Hartley now leads in the off kilter #8 Toyota. The #93 Peugeot 9X8 is in the lane with Jean Eric Vergne and the #4 Vanwall was in the pit box, smoking. Yifei Ye is now eight seconds ahead of Gustavo Menezes between the #38 Hertz Team Jota Porsche and the #94 Peugeot. Oil spewing out the back of the Vanwall and to the garage it goes.
The bonnet is off the back of the Peugeot. They are recharging the air conditioning system or pumping hydraulic fluid into the clutch. Brendon Hartley brings the #8 Toyota to the lane for the final time. Brendon Hartley locking up on cold tires while one of the Ferrari's unlaps itself. Brendon Hartley has had a tough old time with this car this weekend. Kobayashi leads Hartley by 17 seconds. 194 laps on the board, 555 miles. Peugeot's Jean Marc Finot, Senior Vice President of Stellantis Motorsport, says that there was a hydraulic issue. The fix was just adding pressure to the system. A slight hydraulic leak.
Robin Frijns and Ben Hanley scrapping as Kamui Kobayashi uncorks fastest lap at 1:30.780. Robin Frijns passes Ben Hanley for third in LMP2. Robert Kubica leads in the sister WRT LMP2 car, the #41. Ben Barker is holding off the challenge from Ritomo Miyata. Brendon Hartley is well aware there is something wrong with the car for the #8 Toyota. A spin in turn one for Julien Andlauer in the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 and he got tipped by Matteo Cairoli aboard "Rexy". He got bitten by the tyrannosaurus Rex! Ben Barker fending off Ritomo Miyata. Miyata has a glittering future as part of the team for Toyota Gazoo Racing, currently a Super GT star in GT500.
The leading Toyota has now run 200 laps, 567 miles. All 36 cars are back in the race and the #4 Vanwall is back on track. There is a second track limits penalty for the #77 Dempsey Proton Porsche 911 RSR-19 of Julien Andlauer. It could have been a holed radiator or a holed oil cooler for the Vanwall. The #5 Penske Porsche 963 is back on track with Fred Makowiecki back on track. This reliability was not seen in Group C, GT1, or LMP1. Team WRT leads United by 13 and a half seconds. It was coolant leaking out of the sister #41 WRT car as the #34 Inter Europol car pits.
Davide Rigon leads Ritomo Miyata. AF Corse have run 186 laps, 527 miles. Yifei Ye is 13 seconds behind Alessandro Pier Guidi, so, the gap is ebbing and flowing. Kobayashi leads Hartly by 23 seconds. 205 laps completed by the leader, 581 miles. Andre Lotterer in the #6 Porsche Penske Motorsports Porsche 963 is now third. Antonio Fuoco next up in the #50 AF Corse Ferrari 499P. Fifth is the sister Ferrari #51 with Alessandro Pier Guidi driving. Sixth is Yifei Ye in the #38 Jota Porsche 963.
Gustavo Menezes is seventh in the #94 Peugeot. We will have eight or nine more Hypercars in the field. We'll have 18-20 cars battling for position. Eighth and ninth, Neel Jani in the #99 Proton Competition Porsche and Earl Bamber in the #2 Ganassi Racing Cadillac V Series R. Fred Makowiecki is 12th. That is the #5 Porsche 963. We have seen competitive racing from the LMDh platform cars, the Porsche 963's and the lone Cadillac. Recall there were three Cadillac's at Le Mans, two from Ganassi Racing and one from my friends at Action Express.
Drive through penalty for Matteo Cairoli for contact with Julien Andlauer and a fourth penalty for track limits for the #25 ORT by TF Sport Aston Martin for Charlie Eastwood, the Irishman. Eastwood is the Pro driver on that team. They've had a miserable race save for Ahmad Al Harthy. Frijns chasing Albuquerque for second in LMP2. This could be a 1-2 for WRT who will be moving to Hypercar in 2024 with the BMW M Hybrid V8 and perhaps in GT3 with the BMW M4 GT3. BMW have the advantage having raced the car for a full year in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship. Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini and Alpine, all of them, have not raced their cars yet.
Nicky Catsburg is third in GTE Am with Michelle Gatting fourth. Corvette will be running a GT3 car next year with the new Corvette GT3 racing with the new Z06 GT3. Brendon Hartley worrying about a vibration. It is on the front end electric motor. Something isn't working to his liking, but his pace is bang on the money. The car has a bag of spanners rattling around at the front and yet he is still driving hard. Kobayashi does not need to push but Hartley is catching him, and they are both leaving Andre Lotterer in their collective dust. Albuqerque still being chased by Frijns.
Hartley must be feeling something in the Toyota. We are just over 20 minutes away from the end of this race. Limited track time in dry conditions, you can get it wrong and have a qualifying based car instead of a race-based car. Yifei Ye is not even keeping it between the white lines and the Peugeot boys feel they have a chance to go for it. Robin Frijns gets jammed by the Porsche 963 splitting the two LMP2 cars. We're under Full Course Yellow! A monster lockup from someone. Debris on the road, apparently and it s part of the Vanwall. It is an aerodynamic trim tab off the Vanwall where it goes from the black or dark green paint to the lime green paint.
It does rain here at Fuji. We'll see raindrops before the race is over but it won't be the typhoon conditions, we saw here in the rain shortened race in 2012 or way back in 1985. The Full Course Yellow is very short. 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Full Course Yellow removed. Thank you, everyone. The Prema cars have been nose to tail but are a lap apart in eighth and tenth place. Gustavo Menezes was catching Yifei Ye but Menezes in the Peugeot has lost track position to Ye in the Porsche 963 for Jota. Proton Competition need another stop before the race ends.
16 minutes to go and Robin Frijns is looking for a way around Filipe Albuquerque while the sister WRT car of Robert Kubica leads in class and Kamui Kobayashi is leading over Brendon Hartley who has nine seconds in hand over longtime race leader Andre Lotterer in the #6 Porsche 963 for Porsche Penske Motorsports as Charles Milesi is trying to make his move on Albuquerque and does so! Excuse me. That was Ben Hanley. But anyhow, Milesi makes his move on Hanley for good. I don't know if that move was on. Milesi tries again and makes it work this time.
Robin Frijns is within half a second of Filipe Albuquerque. Milesi is complaining about crooked steering but there are only 13 and a half minutes of racing left. WRT, United, WRT, United. The shoe is on the other foot. Frijns has the older tires, but the United car of Albuquerque gets stymied, and there's contact and Frijns makes the pass while the Corvette ducks through! Ten minutes to go. Toyota #7 has run 221 laps, 626 and a half miles. Yifei Ye cannot keep the Porsche 963 on the road and is losing time to the Ferrari while also having the Peugeot of Gustavo Menezes behind him.
The #99 Proton Competition Porsche 963 makes its last pit stop. Frijns and Albuquerque, their shemozzle has been noted, but that was not a shemozzle. That was good, hard racing. Albuquerque not giving up on his battle with Frijns. Six minutes to go, so two laps more plus this one. In LMP2, it is man and machine, or human element and machine because the cars are identical. There is nowhere to hide. We'll have them at Le Mans in the IMSA WeatherTech Championship but not in FIA WEC. Frijns buried his tires to pass Albuquerque. Can he hang on for two laps?
The Vanwall is in the way, slower than the LMP2 cars, with Joao Paulo de Oliveira at the wheel of it. He is in a quicker car but is a slower driver. Wow! United and Prema have swapped places! This is the final lap as the Vanwall passes the #10 Vector Sport Oreca LMP2. Vector Sport will run the Isotta Fraschini Hypercar next year. There is a ole in the side pod of the WRT car. Meantime, Kamui Kobayashi will be the race winner from pole position and they took the lead after four hours of scrapping and scraping. They will be seven points closer to their team car. They go 1-2. #7 wins Fuji!
AF Corse's Davide Rigon and company win GTE Am over Kessel Racing/CarGuy and in LMP2, it is the #41 WRT car of Robert Kubica, and company.
Overall/Hypercar: #7 Kobayashi/Conway/Lopez Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Hybrid
LMP2: #41 Kubica/Andrade/Deletraz Team WRT Oreca 07
LM GTE Am: #54 Castellaci/Flohr/Rigon AF Corse Ferrari 488 GTE
The final race of the championship will be the 8 Hours of Bahrain in the desert, in the first weekend in November. All 36 cars have finished this race at Fuji which is a true rarity in an endurance race. So, there 'tis. The 6 Hours of Fuji is in the bag. We'll see you in Bahrain in the first weekend in November for the finale. Sayonara, and good night, everyone, from the majesty of Mount Fuji. Bye bye.
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