WEC: Kobayashi leads front row lock-out for Toyota at Fuji

Kamui Kobayashi led a Toyota sweep of the front-row of the grid for the 6 Hours of Fuji, FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) race.

Kamui Kobayashi set a new Hypercar lap record of 1min 27.794secs on his way to pole position in the #7 GR010 HYBRID he shares with Mike Conway and José María López. That earned the team’s sixth pole at its home track, and its fourth of the season so far.

Brendon Hartley made it a perfect result in front of Toyota President and TOYOTA GAZOO Racing Europe Chairman Koji Sato, who led the team from the garage, as well as an enthusiastic home crowd. Brendon earned second place in the #8 GR010 HYBRID he drives alongside Sébastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa, 0.624secs behind.

A point for pole position extends TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s World Championship lead over Ferrari to 27 points and brings the #7 crew to within 22 points of their #8 team-mates in the drivers’ standings.

Kobayashi prepared his challenge for his third pole position of the season by going fastest in a damp final practice in the morning, and the changing weather also affected qualifying. The 15-minute session started on a dry track and both cars took four laps to get their tires up to temperature.

Kobayashi’s first flying lap immediately earned provisional pole when he became the first Hypercar driver to lap the historic 4.563km circuit in under 1min 28secs. Brendon set his first flying lap moments later to move into second.

Both drivers attempted a second run and Kobayashi was on course to improve before light rain intervened. The GR010 HYBRIDs returned to the pits for the final few minutes of the session, safe in the knowledge that track conditions no longer allowed competitive lap times.

The pair of Penske-run Porsche 963s will start the FIA World Endurance Championship round from third and fourth on the grid, with the No. 6 car of Kevin Estre ahead of teammate Fred Makowiecki.

Alex Lynn completed the top-five in the No. 2 Chip Ganassi Racing-run Cadillac, which held provisional pole early in the running.

AF Corse’s two Ferrari 499Ps qualified sixth and seventh, ahead of Antonio Felix Da Costa in eighth in the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Porsche and the No. 99 Proton Competition Porsche which was qualified by Gianmaria Bruni.

Mikkel Jensen was the quickest of the Peugeot 9X8s in tenth.

Corvette wins GT Pole

Corvette Racing’s Ben Keating put the team’s No. 33 Mobil 1/SiriusXM Chevrolet Corvette C8.R on the GTE Am pole position Saturday ahead of Sunday’s Six Hours of Fuji – the sixth round of the FIA World Endurance Championship.

Keating, who is teaming with Nicky Catsburg and Nico Varrone, set a best lap of 1:38.338 (103.769 mph) in the championship-winning C8.R. Corvette Racing clinched the GTE Am Drivers and Teams titles in the last WEC round at Monza, Italy and is seeking its fourth victory of the season.

On Saturday, Keating was just 0.035 seconds clear of Sarah Bovy in the No. 85 Porsche of the Iron Dames team. The top half of the class was very close with the six fastest GTE Am cars separated by just 0.673 seconds around the 2.84-mile, 16-turn circuit at the base of Mount Fuji. Keating claimed his third pole position of the season and eighth in the class since the start of 2021 – more than any other GTE Am driver.

It was difficult for the full field of 36 cars to get a read on the track during the three practice sessions. Friday’s opening practice and Saturday’s final practice were in mixed conditions with periods of rain and dry weather. That left Friday’s second practice as the only fully dry running ahead of qualifying.

Still, Corvette Racing engineers made good use of each session with the conditions uncertain heading into qualifying with a variety of tuning and chassis changes in hopes of finding a good balance in the Corvette for not just the 15 minutes but also Sunday’s six-hour race.

LMP2 Pole goes to United Autosports

The No.22 United Autosports Oreca-Gibson took pole as Phil Hanson backed up his ELMS pole at Aragon last month with another in Fuji

Hanson’s lap of 1m32.182s led the No.41 WRT entry driven by Louis Deletraz and take his first WEC pole of the season

Strong qualifying for United Autosports as Oliver Jarvis claimed third with a lap of 1m3.453

Quotes – Top 2 Hypercar Drivers

Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7): “It’s great to get a result like this at our home track. This is an important weekend for us and to show our performance like this is very special. Due to the rain, we have had very limited running in dry conditions, but the team did a great job to put everything together for qualifying and I did a pretty good lap on my first attempt. The car felt really strong compared to practice; it improved a lot. I was not expecting a lap time like that, and I was a bit shocked when I saw it. To have a fast car today is a good indication for the race but it will not be easy. We expect it to be a dry race and it could be hot, so we need to judge the tire choice well and, as always, we need some luck. We are ready, we will work hard, and I hope we can finish one-two.”

Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8): “This is a really good team result. I wasn’t totally happy with the balance on our car, which shifted a bit since final practice when it had felt better. In qualifying I struggled a bit, although we are still second so it’s a strong performance. The rain was starting towards the end and even on my fast lap I had some spots of my windscreen. Qualifying in Hypercar is always a big fight and it was a tricky session for everyone, with the conditions and the challenge to find track position. Kamui did an amazing lap, bravo to him. It’s great to lock out the front row, now let’s go for the win.”

GT Pole Winner

BEN KEATING, NO. 33 MOBIL 1/SiriusXM CHEVROLET CORVETTE C8.R – POLE-WINNER: “I don’t know why (race engineer) Tyler Neff has to wait until qualifying to give us the really good setup! I went more than two seconds per lap faster in qualifying today than I have at any other time this weekend. It’s because the setup is that much better. It was so confidence-inspiring. I could really push the car without losing grip, even on a damp track. I don’t know what they did, but the car was really nice to drive. I wasn’t expecting to be on the pole. It’s always so much fun to be that close with Sarah. She did a good job. I thought I had a pretty good lap and then the team said she did a 1:38.3, and I came across the line at a 38.3 and not knowing who was going to be in front. It was super, super close. Last year being with TF Sport and being teammates with Satoshi Hoshino in the Aston Martin… this is his home track and where he lives. I’m really happy for him to come in P3. It was a little bit of a reunion at tech after qualifying seeing Sarah and Hoshino down there. It’s a lot of fun. This season continues to be a fairy-tale season. Every time you think it can’t get any better, it keeps getting better. I’m just trying to soak up and enjoy every last minute.

“It was exciting before we left. They asked me what I thought, and I thought it would be the best thing to go out on a drying wet tire. To me, the frontstraight looked wet. We watched every car around me put on slicks, and so the engineers made the decision to go with slicks from the get-go. When I got around on the back half of the track, it was a lot drier than it was on the frontstraight. I came on the radio and congratulated them on making the right call. It was a matter of bringing them up to temperature slowly and not over-driving in the damp conditions. But you only have a 15-minute window to get them up to temperature and take advantage of the peak of the tire to get those extra few tenths.

“We made some big sweeping changes on the car. We had been chasing it a little bit. I give the engineers such a hard time because it seems like it’s the same at every race we go to! We’re not exactly sure where we are, but when we get to qualifying I have a really, really strong setup on the car. We made some really big changes and they got it really right. The car felt really good. I felt like I could really attack the corners without feeling like I’m walking on eggshells. Especially in Sector Three, you have to be able to have confidence going through there if you’re going to be fast. It’s the first time I’ve felt that here, and the car felt really good.”

Qualifying Results

Hypercar

LMP2

LMGTE