Penske Porsche, Fuji, WEC, 2024

Penske Porsche poised to clinch title after winning incident-packed Fuji Six Hours

WEC

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Porsche Penske’s number six squad is set to clinch the World Endurance Championship at the season finale after scoring their second win of the season in Fuji.

The 963 shared by Andre Lotterer, Kevin Estre and Laurens Vanthoor hit the front in the early stages of the race, moving ahead of the pole-winning Cadillac of Earl Bamber and Alex Lynn.

However their victory was briefly cast into doubt when the stewards announced they were under investigation for a tyre pressure infringement after the race. The team was handed a reprimand and their victory stood.

Robert Kubica, who shared the race-winning AF Corse Ferrari in Brazil two weeks ago, triggered a multi-car crash at the hairpin as lap two began, earning his car a 30-second stop-go penalty. Several cars were delayed, including the sister works number 51 Ferrari and the second Penske Porsche.

Toyota, who won the series’ last six visits to Fuji stretching back to 2016, had a home race to forget. The number seven car suffered race-ending rear suspension and bodywork damage when team principal Kamui Kobayashi collided with the number five Penske Porsche, driven at the time by Matt Campbell.

The sister number eight Porsche came 10th after Ryo Hirakawa collected a drive-through penalty for failing to respect blue flags when the winning Porsche appeared in its mirrors with Estre at the wheel.

The pole-winning Cadillac was delayed by a puncture, then retired after Bamber crashed. The number 15 BMW of Dries Vanthoor, Rafaelle Marciello and Marco Wittmann therefore rose to take second place.

The final podium position was secured by Mick Schumacher for the number 36 Alpine, which he shares with Nicolas Lapierre and Mathieu Vaxiviere, when he passed the number 12 Jota Porsche in the latter stages. That car was then pipped to fourth by the number 93 Peugeot.

With the number seven Toyota failing to score, and the number 51 Ferrari finishing a lowly ninth, Penske Porsche’s leading driver trio are now hot favourites to clinch the title at the season finale in Bahrain.

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Race result

Pos No. Class Team Car Drivers
1 6 Hypercar Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 Kevin Estre/Andre Lotterer/Laurens Vanthoor
2 15 Hypercar Bmw M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 Dries Vanthoor/Raffaele Marciello/Marco Wittmann
3 36 Hypercar Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424 Nicolas Lapierre/Mick Schumacher/Matthieu Vaxiviere
4 93 Hypercar Peugeot Peugeot 9X8 Mikkel Jensen/Nico Mueller/Jean-Eric Vergne
5 12 Hypercar Team Jota Porsche 963 Will Stevens/Callum Ilott/Norman Nato
6 38 Hypercar Team Jota Porsche 963 Jenson Button/Philip Hanson/Oliver Rasmussen
7 35 Hypercar Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424 Paul-Loup Chatin/Ferdinand Habsburg/Charles Milesi
8 94 Hypercar Peugeot Peugeot 9X8 Paul di Resta/Loic Duval/Stoffel Vandoorne
9 50 Hypercar Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P Antonio Fuoco/Miguel Molina/Nicklas Nielsen
10 8 Hypercar Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Sebastien Buemi/Brendon Hartley/Ryo Hirakawa
11 99 Hypercar Proton Competition Porsche 963 Harry Tincknell/Neel Jani/Julien Andlauer
12 83 Hypercar AF Corse Ferrari 499P Robert Kubica/Robert Shwartzman/Yifei Ye
13 54 LMGT3 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 Thomas Flohr/Francesco Castellacci/Davide Rigon
14 92 LMGT3 Manthey Purerxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R Aliaksandr Malykhin/Joel Sturm/Klaus Bachler
15 46 LMGT3 Team WRT BMW M4 Ahmad Al Harthy/Valentino Rossi/Maxime Martin
16 81 LMGT3 TF Sport Corvette Z06.R Tom Van Rompuy/Rui Andrade/Charlie Eastwood
17 85 LMGT3 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan Evo2 Sarah Bovy/Rahal Frey/Michelle Gatting
18 55 LMGT3 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 Francois Heriau/Simon Mann/Alessio Rovera
19 777 LMGT3 D’Station Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR Clement Mateu/Erwan Bastard/Marco Sorensen
20 59 LMGT3 United Autosports McLaren 720S Evo James Cottingham/Nicolas Costa/Gregoire Saucy
21 27 LMGT3 Heart Of Racing Team Aston Martin Vantage AMR Ian James/Daniel Mancinelli/Alex Riberas
22 31 LMGT3 Team WRT BMW M4 Darren Leung/Sean Gelael/Augusto Farfus
23 78 LMGT3 Akkodis Asp Team Lexus RC F Arnold Robin/Clemens Schmid/Kelvin Van Der Linde
24 87 LMGT3 Akkodis Asp Team Lexus RC F Takeshi Kimura/Esteban Masson/Jose Maria Lopez
25 60 LMGT3 Iron Lynx Lamborghini Huracan Evo2 Claudio Schiavoni/Matteo Cressoni/Franck Perera
26 91 LMGT3 Manthey Ema Porsche 911 GT3 R Yasser Shahin/Morris Schuring/Richard Lietz
27 77 LMGT3 Proton Competition Ford Mustang Ryan Hardwick/Zacharie Robichon/Ben Barker
28 88 LMGT3 Proton Competition Ford Mustang Giorgio Roda/Mikkel Pedersen/Dennis Olsen
29 95 LMGT3 United Autosports McLaren 720S Evo Joshua Caygill/Nicolas Pino/Marino Sato
30 7 Hypercar Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota GR010 Mike Conway/Kamui Kobayashi/Nyck de Vries
31 20 Hypercar Bmw M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 Sheldon Van Der Linde/Robin Frijns/Rene Rast
32 2 Hypercar Cadillac Racing Cadillac V-Series.R Earl Bamber/Alex Lynn/
33 51 Hypercar Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P Alessandro Pier Guidi/James Calado/Antonio Giovinazzi
34 82 LMGT3 TF Sport Corvette Z06.R Hiroshi Koizumi/Sebastien Baud/Daniel Juncadella
35 5 Hypercar Porsche Penske Motorsport Porsche 963 Matt Campbell/Michael Christensen/Frederic Makowiecki
36 63 Hypercar Lamborghini Iron Lynx Lamborghini SC63 Mirko Bortolotti/Edoardo Mortara/Daniil Kvyat

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Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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