Toyota ended Porsche’s winning streak in the FIA World Endurance Championship by taking a one-two finish in a rain-shortened 6 Hours of Fuji on Sunday.
Having not won a WEC race since the beginning of May, Toyota’s chances of ending its drought on home soil took a hit after qualifying on Saturday as Porsche locked out the front row with its pair of Porsche 919 Hybrids.
The No. 2 Porsche of Brendon Hartley, Timo Bernhard and Earl Bamber forged an early lead, only for repeated safety car periods to wipe it away and bring Toyota into contention.
Early contact left the No. 1 Porsche with damage, while struggles for Bernhard in the rain allowed Toyota to vault its cars into top two positions amid a litany of safety car periods.
The race was red flagged twice due to the weather conditions, stopping for the final time with a quarter of the race to run and not resuming.
Victory for Sebastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Anthony Davidson keeps their title hopes alive heading to the penultimate race of the season in Shanghai in three weeks’ time, trailing the No. 2 Porsche crew by 39 points with 50 available.
Vaillante Rebellion swept to its second win of the season in LMP2 with Bruno Senna, Nicolas Prost and Julien Canal in the No. 31 Oreca 07 Gibson, cutting the gap to the class-leading No. 38 Jackie Chan DC Racing squad in the championship.
AF Corse drivers James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi moved into the lead of the GTE-Pro standings with their second straight victory in the No. 51 Ferrari 488 GTE, leading home the two factory Porsche 911 RSRs, while Spirit of Race took class honors in GTE-Am with its No. 54 Ferrari.