Race Highlights | 6 Hours of Fuji 2025 | FIA WEC

Hello, good morning and welcome to Fuji Speedway in Japan. The penultimate round of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship. Six hours of Fuji for the 100th FIA WC race. So the Japanese national flag is waved. It's super tight into the first turn. They're coming from a higher speed than normally other circuits into turn one for the first time. So it's really easy to make a mistake. The safety car will die for the pits at the last moment. Red lights are on. We are ready to race in Japan. And it's a pretty good clean start. One of the Toyotas is not quite running through its grid markings, and that might be a problem for them early on. Sebastian Buemi in the number eight. The two Cadillacs fan out trying to defend against Paul di Resta's Peugeot. Marco Sorensen on the inside being very cautious under braking in the Aston Martin. And Darren Turner, so easy to make a mistake there, but it looks like there's been no contact so far. On the grid of hypercars, they all gave each other space. You can see as they're trundling down the main start-finish straight, they were conscious about making sure no one's going to trip over each other into turn one. New leader in LMGT3 behind, though. Darren Leung into turn one on the inside and grabbed that lead from Tony McIntosh. Seem to remember him being brave at the start a couple of times in turn one. We had a couple of cars run out wide. René Rast and I'm not sure who was behind him. But there's a move on the inside of the number five. Antonio Giovinazzi trying to hang on. Julian Andelaar going the long way round the outside and cuts across the nose of the Ferrari, takes the place. This is the start of the race. The two Cadillacs trying to manage the front row control. Worked really well for Will Stevens. Sebastian Borde helping out. Little lock up there from the seven Toyota. And the 007, the Aston Martin Valkyrie. 15 BMW there on the right hand side. There's the 83. What to watch at the moment is this car. 11.6 is on a charge through this field. Well, he was on the front row. Beg pardon, on the second row of the grid. The yellow nose there coming down into turn one. Ian James on the outside got just shuffled out a little wide and that allowed the second McLaren that was using the inside channel. I tell you what, I'd like to see a replay of the cars actually starting the race because he was way behind before they got into turn one. The 54 Thomas Flohr got biffed out onto the gravel by the 81 Corvette and dropped way down the order. And here is the McLaren going around. Does he get two Astons in one go? Doesn't quite. This was all on lap one. Took the second position away from number 10 car after it ran wide down there at turn 10. So Tony McIntosh being conservative. Two Ferraris nose to tail. The second of the Aston Martins, that 007 Harry Tingle behind. Phil Hansen. And he's just been to the other Ferrari 50 car. Nick Nielsen trying to have a go. But the Aston Martin has got long legs on this straight. The Aston Martin making progress here. And the second of the Porsche is the number six car. Laurence Vantore up behind Mike Conway's Toyota. He didn't get through. 15 BMW taking a look at the inside of the... Oh, and off into the gravel and back on again very quickly comes the number six. Oh, through on the inside of the Aston Martin comes the second of the Ferraris. And that is 50 versus 007 Harry Tingle in the green Aston and through on the inside. He certainly went for it at that point. And then obviously Tinks is now coming back. Does look like the Aston's got some good speed on the main straight, but maybe the compromise on the aero and losing a little bit out on that sector three. But look at the Porsche, number six car also going round the outside of the 50 car. Can he make it through that tricky turn one? He's going to have to go the long way round this. He does. The Ferrari is right with him. Still there. Still there. The spotter would be screaming at this point, but the Porsche makes it through. Yes, it does. Challenge for the lead. Now, this is where it all went wrong last year for McLaren. Down into turn one a couple of times. Darren Leung and James Cottingham change positions. Cottingham taking the lead. And that's the slipstream effect. Even with your own teammate, you can draft past him on the straight. And Benketi up to third in that exchange as well. Past Tony McIntosh, who I think is driving at this point. Bit of a wiggle there for Ben in the Corvette. Oh, trouble for... That is 007, Harry Tingle. That's down at turn ten, I think. That is at turn ten. I think the brakes may be the least of his issues. I'm just so lucky. I just don't understand what to do. I went up on the big, but... He went up on the BB, the brake balance. And there you see it all open up for the Porsche behind. Oh, contact! Contact front to rear. Habsburg hit the back of the number eight car. And is that a left rear puncture? It is. That is a left rear puncture. Instant puncture from that contact. Yeah, that was a late move. I don't really think it's an overtaking opportunity. Turn three, maybe from class to class. But actually, you really need to have a big overlap. Just got to solve a truck this year. Behind this car. Play with the bars if you need to. Maximum slow, maximum stiff. I'll do everything. Yeah, copy. Well, a spin there from the number 60 Mercedes, the yellow car of Andrew Gilbert. And that split the difference here. And the one who lost out was Loic Duval, got first to the scene of the incident and lost more ground. And Darren Turner, sometimes being the hunter is hard, but being the hunted is often much harder. Yeah, absolutely. I always prefer to be sort of hunting someone down and using them as the pace. But you can see this is a real drag race down into turn one here between the five and the Peugeot. That type of scenario that we've just seen into turn ten, very tricky for everyone to be able to navigate through that. Yeah. And there again, that's where the 60 car spun. You see everybody go, whoa! This is perhaps the best position Durrest has been in during a race. He looks around the outside, Darren, and that makes it the inside for the next corner. That's a good move. And now he's got the drive out of turn 11. As he goes up to turn 12, he's made that move happen. And the Ferrari now is getting underneath. So this could be a point where the Cadillac drops down to fourth. A bit of debris flying up there. I don't think it came off the car rather from under a car, but the Cadillac struggling for traction up the hill. He's out wide. Giovinazzi giving him absolutely zero room to manoeuvre. He hangs on, though, Bordet, but he's not going to be quick onto the straight and the Ferrari will be right in the toe. With Antonio Giovinazzi's Ferrari on the inside of Sebastien Bordet. Bordet was second at the restart at the end of lap one of the fresh race. He is down to third, down to fourth now and behind. This isn't going to be two for the price of one, but he is going to get by Loic du Val. Loic in that Porte de Peugeot also closing in on the Porsche of Julian Andlauer. Yeah. And Sorensen, I'm sure, does it. Am I, am I, am I? No, no, no. It's not over yet. It was a bit more of a on the way out. Car eight, three minute stop and go penalty for virtual safety car emergency pit stop infringement. This is exactly the kind of car he's been waiting for in his career. It's like a great pair of running shoes. This is the three minute stop and go for the number eight car. Here is Tom Van Brompuy, end of the straight inside Tony McIntosh. McIntosh lost three places halfway through sector three and towards the end of sector one. That was a, that was a tough half a lap for him. He had to take to the grass to get inside the Ferrari, Darren, and then... And then just lost a little bit on the traction on the way out. But the move into turn 16, that was a, like, really good move. Big crash for Raffaele Marcello. He's just taken over the number 15 BMW. This is his out lap. He has put it in the wall hard where he's going around the 99 Porsche and loses it on cold tyres. You see brand new tyres on the right there. So it looks like he had a full set. He did. He's complaining about a brake test from the 99 car. The Porsche came in front of him there and looked like a stop. However, just to get to the line. Protonic are going to retain this lead. It's going to be very close because of the virtual safety guard. That is the number 93 Porsche. And I think Proton are in and out the pits. And they are and will retain the lead with that pit stop. Nato in the position, perfectly placed now. He goes to the outside. He's got the overlap. I'm not sure. I mean, ultimately, unless he can dash across now under braking and block off the Toyota. But the Toyota has got the inside line. So he's just going to try and push him wide on the exit like that. So, yeah, basically push him wide on the exit. The good thing for the Cadillac, it went way past the gravel. On board with Nick de Vries, you see the battle under brakes for the lead. Going through in Turn 10 and running out wide behind the 21 Ferrari. A change for the lead. Jean-Éric Vergne elbowed his way through. A superb move. I mean, he just jinked out last minute, fired it down the inside. A little bit of contact, both fighting for the same bit of tarmac. But the main thing for Ferroni is he didn't lose any more places. It would have been really easy for him to get a bad drive off Turn 11. Oh, trouble! 99 car turned around. That's a real shame. Ferroni had it. He had sort of bad traction out of Turn 11 and just enough room to get the nose of the Ferrari underneath him and then shut the apex. Oh, and another big lurid spin. That's 27 hard to racing. And who's that in the dust? That's the 007. And it's big damage. And that is out of the race. That is very heavily damaged right front corner. Straight on on the colder tyre. Yeah. Big handful at that point. There's the hard to racing and... Between the GT cars. Yeah, he's trying to go down the inside of 27. And the Porsche goes inside him and he turns in and it spins. Wow. Lots of drama as the 007 on its outlap loses it on cold tyres and takes out 27, the hard to racing car. Oh, big, big twitch for the 92 car. And that's going to mean it's a change for the lead. No, right hand play does not go past Ricciardo Pera. But that is the top six, seven cars in LMGT3. Oh, wow. He almost shut the door, Antonio Fueco, then thought better of it and remembered what the message had said. And Kevin Escher had a half thought and then went. Consumption of these cars in that's 88. Dennis Olsen in trouble. Is it contact with 81? It is right front. 93 and 009 are in. Is it a full four tyre change? It is for 93. Everybody is going loaded for bear for the final hour of this race. We have a new race leader, Charles Melesi in the blue Alpine. Alpine pulled a fast one in the pit lane, literally by only changing the left side tyres instead of all four. They save themselves about 10 seconds and they now lead the race into the final hour. That was contact. Markus Orensen, the back of the number seven Toyota, mercifully both emerged relatively unscathed. Tyre now running out wide. Here comes the Porsche on the inside. Finally, is this going to be the change? And it might be. Oh, goodness me. Mikkel Jensen. Splash and dash in the final five minutes. 21 Ferrari was the race leader, had taken the points lead as well. Who else needs fuel? Second place still in the balance, as is LMTT3. Alessio Rivera back out on track. But Charlie Eastwood closing fast in the Corvette as the second place Ferrari has had to pit. Onto the straights comes Xiaomi Lacey. The Alpine Endurance Team win in Hypercup. It is Alpine who will win the 100th World Endurance Championship race here in Fuji. A phenomenal success for Philippe Signos. And Mikkel Jensen gives Peugeot their best ever race result with second place. A fantastic third place finish from last on the grid from the number six Porsche. But two French teams on the top two steps of the podium. Celebrations and tears from the Alpine team. The first victory for the new Alpine Hypercar. They win race 100. No words, to be honest. Still unbelievable in a way. It feels like a dream in a way, because after the first first stints, we're looking quite bad, nearly a lap down. And to have such a great comeback. I think the team did an amazing job. First, the car was was good in race pace. Not a lot of degradation on our side. And yeah, the strategy was the focus here, I think, made us gain a lot of positions. And yeah, I think the last thing was quite it was probably the longest of my life. Across the line first, the 21 Ferrari and LMGT3, but Vitja going to the 81 Corvette. Charlie Eastwood closing the Ferrari right down at a five second pit stop infringement penalty for the Ferrari. Dropped them back to second place. So the 81 Corvette is the second TF Sport car to win after 33. Claimed a victory in the season opener in Qatar. On a podium, I'm sure that very few predicted. Peugeot showed pace all through the weekend. And but for that gamble on tyres from Alpine, they could have been on the top step of the podium. But it is the Alpine trio that claim their first win in the Hypercar. And a strong race from the number six Porsche crew keep them in the championship hunt, and that keeps the manufacturers title race open as well. Nothing is decided yet. We go to the eight hours of Bahrain with all the championships still up for grabs and with new fever in the two French manufacturer camps.