The globe-trotting FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) traveled to Japan for the penultimate race of the season, a six-hour race at Fuji Speedway in Japan, in the shadow of Mt. Fuji. The M4 GT3 EVO entries had a strong race with both in the top five in class, while the pair of M Hybrid V8s in the Hypercar class had a disappointing result.
A good result didn’t seem promising for the BMW M Team WRT Hypercar entries after the three practice sessions leading up to the race. Neither car cracked the top ten in lap times in the first two sessions, but the #20 car driven by René Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde set the sixth fastest time in the third session. The two M4 GT3 EVOs entries were off the pace in practice as well, though the #46 car was fifth fastest in the first session.
The #20 M Hybrid V8 finished in ninth after qualifying in fifth.
In qualifying, the #20 M Hybrid V8 was the fastest of the two BMW Hypercars and just made it into the Hyperpole session for the top ten fastest cars with the tenth fastest time. Robin Frijns drove the #20 in the Hyperpole session and set the fifth fastest time, around six-tenths of a second off the pole time of the #12 Cadillac. The #15 car missed out on Hyperpole, qualifying in thirteenth.. In LMGT3, neither of the M4 GT3 EVO entries made it into Hyperpole, as they qualified in eleventh (#46) and fourteenth (#31).
The #15 M Hybrid V8 was retired after an accident.
The race didn’t go well for the M Hybrid V8 entries. The #20 that qualified fifth was hit and spun by another car with Kevin Magnussen at the wheel, then had a drive-through penalty that set them back. They ultimately finished in ninth, with the win going to the #13 Alpine. The #15 car had a major accident with Raffaele Marciello at the wheel, when he lost control and went hard into the guardrail after another Hypercar entry in front of him braked unexpectedly due to a technical issue. Marciello was OK but the car had to be retired.
The #46 M4 GT3 EVO finished in fourth in LMGT3.
The race went better for the BMWs in LMGT3, as both M4 GT3 EVO entries raced better than they qualified. The #31 entry of Augusto Farfus, Yasser Shahin and Timur Boguslavskiy (shown in top photo) played their strategy well and moved up from fourteenth to finish on the podium in third, while the #46 car of Kelvin van der Linde, Valentino Rossi and Ahmad Al Harthy finished fourth. The LMGT3 class win went to the #81 Corvette. “Given the pace we had this weekend, we didn’t expect to move so far forward in the race but we did an excellent job,” said Farfus. “We had to overcome a few hurdles, but the team handled them brilliantly. The car was much better in the race than in qualifying.”
Timur Boguslavskiy (lleft), Augusto Farfus (middle) and Yasser Shahin celebrate third place in LMGT3.
The FIA WEC season finale takes place in Bahrain with an eight-hour race on November 6th-8th.
BMW M Motorsport also confirmed that BMW M Team WRT would be running the IMSA GTP program next year in addition to the FIA WEC Hypercar program. They will run the program out of a base in Charlotte, North Carolina, in a space the team is renting from the Haas Formula 1 team. “We are facing a great challenge, but our team has gained a lot of experience worldwide over the past ten years, and we feel ready for this challenge,” said WRT Team Principal Vincent Vosse. “We know the BMW M Hybrid V8, we know the drivers – and we can’t wait to get started. Many thanks to BMW M Motorsport for the trust and this fantastic opportunity.”
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy BMW]
