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The FIA World Endurance Championship has arrived at Fuji, with many expecting Toyota, at its home track, to romp away with a win, as it has done for the previous six editions of the 6 hour race held here in Japan.
Indeed, the Japanese manufacturer has won every WEC race held at Fuji apart from one, in 2015, when Porsche won with the mighty 919 Hybrid.
So, the odds are against anyone else winning at Fuji. But, when looking at the Fuji long-run pace, we could see a battle between Toyota and some of the LMDh manufacturers.
In the first free practice session, the factory Penske-run Porsches were on top — just one tenth separating their top 20% average laps. The Toyotas, in that session, were sixth and seventh, with a customer JOTA Porsche, a Ferrari, and an Alpine between them.
Indeed, the fastest Toyota in that session was almost four tenths off the #5 Porsche. There was less than a tenth between the #12 Porsche, in third, and the #7 Toyota, in sixth, but the factory Porsches were almost three tenths ahead.
Looking at FP2, the picture changed. As you'd expect, the lap times were quicker, with teams putting into practice what they'd learnt from the first session.
The fastest car on average in the long runs, the #35 Alpine, was almost half a second quicker than the #5 Porsche in the first session. And, much like in FP1, the top 3 was dominated by LMDh cars, with the #2 Cadillac and #20 BMW second and third in the session.
While the best laps were very close in the session — just a few hundredths between the #15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor, the #5 Porsche of Matt Campbell, and the #2 Cadillac of Alex Lynn — the average pace was close too. There was just 19 hundredths between the leading Alpine and second-placed Cadillac on average, with the #20 BMW just under a tenth and half back.
The fastest Toyota didn't manage to dip under the 90-second mark, around two and a half tenths off on average.
Ferrari, meanwhile, are slightly behind Toyota — but not by much, just a few hundredths in FP2. Given that in the race at COTA, Toyota were faster than the Ferraris – although due to Kobayashi's penalty for not obeying local yellow flags, they didn't win — this is probably to be expected.
That said, Toyota are by far the heaviest and least powerful car in Balance of Performance terms, even heavier and less powerful under 250kph than at COTA. So, this may be somewhat surprising. They did, though, get a small power boost in the BOP for Fuji for power gain after 250kph. Maybe that's nudging them ahead.
That is, though, exactly what BoP is designed to do.
However, this is all a bit meaningless. As we saw at COTA, Toyota can be 'slow' in practice and then challenge for the win in the race. I'd expect Ferrari too to be substantially faster in the race than they've shown in practice.
Finally, a quick word on qualifying. Toyota have been somewhat lacklustre in qualifying this year, seeming to struggle turning the tyres on. The fastest free practice times — see results sheets here for FP1, here for FP2 — may indicate Toyota are continuing to struggle for one lap pace in Fuji.
Ferrari and Porsche, on the other hand, have both been quick in qualifying this year. And, with BMW heading the best lap pace in FP2, maybe we could see one or both of the German-Belgian machines fighting for pole.
FP3, though, tends to be when teams do qualifying simulations, so we'll see how things pan out in that session.
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