25 Fabulous Fuji Stats!
Get clued up with some remarkable facts and stats as we head to Fuji Speedway.....
1. Whilst the overall world title will go to Bahrain, the LMGT3 title can be wrapped up by Manthey PureRxcing #92 in Fuji, as can the World Cup for Hypercar Teams by Jota #12.
2. If Manthey #92 wins the LMGT3 title in Fuji, it’ll mark the first time two GT titles have been won consecutively not at the last race of the season, as Corvette #33 wrapped up the final GTE Am title at the 5th of seven rounds in 2023.
3. At #6hFuji 2019, Toyota #8 recorded the only top-class Grand Slam in #WEC history. Buemi, Hartley & Nakajima topped every Free Practice session, set pole position, led all 232 laps, set the fastest lap, and won the race.
4. Fuji is the 70th WEC race to feature Neel Jani and Davide Rigon, with the pair joining James Calado, Brendon Hartley, Nico Lapierre & Andre Lotterer as drivers to reach this fairly exclusive milestone in 2024
5. Fuji 2024 is Brendon Hartley’s 34th race with Toyota, matching his total appearances with Porsche LMP1 Team
6. Team WRT is undefeated in Japan, having won LMP2 at Fuji in both 2022 and 2023. BMW also recorded its first WEC podium at the Speedway back in 2018.
7. Victory at Fuji for Toyota would see it become the first marque to win 10 races overall at a single WEC circuit
8. Porsche is the only make to beat Toyota at its home race, in 2015
9. Four of the six Japanese drivers who have won in WEC have won their home race in Fuji – Kazuki Najakima, Shinji Nakano, Kamui Kobayashi and Ryo Hirakawa
10. Kazuki Nakajima and Sebastien Buemi have each won Fuji a record four times – twice as teammates, twice separately
11. Five LMP2 winners at Fuji will compete for overall/Hypercar glory at the 2024 race – Will Stevens (2016), Nyck de Vries (2019), Dries Vanthoor and Robin Frijns (2022) and Robert Kubica (2023)
12. Much like COTA, Aston Martin comes into Fuji with the most combined wins in the GT classes, with seven. Ferrari has six wins, Porsche four, with Corvette and Ford tied one apiece.
13. Top-class WEC debutants at past races in Fuji comprise Japanese drivers Takuma Sato and Tsugio Matsuda, Luca Ghiotto, and two of 2024’s Hypercar drivers, in Alex Lynn and Antonio Govinazzi, who both first appeared in LMP2 at the 2016 race.
14. Fuji is the only circuit that Hypercars have competed at, and none have retired. Every other circuit the class has visited has produced at least one non-finish, whilst every race in 2024 has seen at least one car in class fail to finish.
15. Keiko Ihara was the first woman to stand on a WEC podium, at her home race in Fuji 2014. After two race wins in 2023, 2024 is currently the first season since 2021 not to see a woman finish in the top three.
16. Four Japanese drivers have finished on the podium at each of the last two #6hFuji – Kamui Kobayashi & Ryo Hirakawa overall, with Satoshi Hoshino & Tomonobu Fujii 3rd in GTE Am in 2022, and Ritomo Miyata & Takeshi Kimura 3rd in GTE Am in 2023.
17. 26 #6hFuji winners compete at the 2024 event – Nico Lapierre, Richard Lietz, Fred Makowiecki, Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Harry Tincknell, Will Stevens, James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, Thomas Flohr, Francesco Castellacci, Miguel Molina, Jose Maria Lopez, Michael Christensen, Kevin Estre, Marco Sorensen, Charlie Eastwood, Nyck de Vries, Ryo Hirakawa, Sean Gelael, Robin Frijns, Dries Vanthoor, Rui Andrade and Robert Kubica.
18. Fuji Speedway was established in 1963 and originally designed as a 4km banked superspeedway but only one of the banked turns was ever constructed. The track was converted to a road course circuit and opened in 1965. The 30 degree ‘Daiichi’ banking was used as part of the circuit but a number of fatal accidents caused it to be abandoned with a change of track configuration.
19. The current 4.563km / 2.835 mile layout, established in 2005, is the 5th configuration of the circuit since Fuji Speedway opened in 1965.
20. At 1.5km / 0.93 miles the start finish straights is one of the longest in motorsport.
21. Fuji Speedway brought the first Formula One race to Japan at the end of the 1976 season. The race had a dramatic World Championship battle between James Hunt and Niki Lauda, and in torrential rain, Hunt earned enough points to win the title. This battle between Lauda and Hunt was immortalised in the 2013 film ‘Rush’.
22. The 1000km of Fuji was first held in 1967 and ran continuously until 1992, and more recently in 1999 and 2007. In 2012 the World Endurance Championship introduced the 6 Hours of Fuji and the race has run every year apart from the pandemic affected seasons in 2020 and 2021.
23. Mount Fuji, or Fuji San as the mountain is reverently referred to by the Japanese, provides one of the most dramatic backdrops to any race circuit in the world. Mount Fuji is one of three holy mountains in Japan, Mount Tate and Mount Haku being the others.
24. Mount Fuji is 3,776.24 m / 12,389 ft high and is actually an active volcano which last erupted in 1707/08.
25. Mount Fuji was added to the World Heritage List as a Cultural Site by UNESCO on June 22, 2013.
