The World Endurance Championship has cancelled qualifying for the Fuji 6 Hours after torrential rain hit the track on Saturday afternoon.
While the final practice session of the weekend took place in wet conditions without any drama, a fresh bout of rain just before qualifying severely limited the visibility on the circuit.
The opening session for LMGT3 started as planned at 3pm local time, but was red-flagged just a minute later after bronze-rated Francois Heriau crashed the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 at Turn 2.
Shortly after all cars had returned to the pitlane, race control announced that qualifying for both LMGT3 and Hypercar classes would be cancelled, with weather not expected to clear up for several hours.
As per the sporting regulations, the starting grid for Sunday’s race will be based on combined times from the three practice sessions.
The majority of the grid had set their fastest lap times in FP2 on Friday afternoon, before the track became too wet for slick tyres on Saturday.
Alpine will hence start the WEC’s Japan round from pole position after Victor Martins set a best time of 1m29.304s aboard the #36 A424 in FP2.
#36 Alpine Endurance Team Alpine A424: Jules Gounon, Frederic Makowiecki, Victor Martins
Photo by: JEP
Harry Tincknell finished second-fastest in the 90-minute session, but the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie will drop to fourth on the grid after being hit with a two-place penalty for crashing into the #27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 in FP3 earlier on Saturday.
That will elevate the #35 Alpine of Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg to second place for a front-row lockout, a year after the French manufacturer scored its first victory with the A424 LMDh at the same venue.
The #19 Genesis GMR-001 shared by Paul-Loup Chatin, Daniel Juncadella and Mathieu Jaminet will move up to third place, securing the best qualifying result for the Hyundai Group brand.
Genesis’ sister car, whose best practice time was set by Mathys Jaubert, will line up in fifth, behind the penalised #007 Aston Martin of Tincknell and Tom Gamble. The British manufacturer, however, will have both its cars starting high up the order after the #009 Valkyrie posted the sixth-best time in practice.
Seventh place will go to the #38 Jota Cadillac V-Series.R, followed by the #8 Toyota TR010. The top 10 will be completed by the #93 Peugeot 9X8 and the #12 Cadillac.
The two cars that jointly lead the standings will start from the bottom half of the Hypercar grid.
The #7 Toyota TR010 will take the start from 13th on the grid after Kamui Kobayashi ended up over seven seconds off the pace in practice.
#8 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TR010: Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa
Photo by: JEP
BMW elected not to focus on low-fuel runs in the dry-weather Friday practice, aware that rain was forecast on Saturday during qualifying. However, with qualifying now cancelled, the strategy has left the #20 BMW M Hybrid that is equal on points with the #7 Toyota 17th and last in the Hypercar field.
Ferrari will also face an uphill battle on Sunday, with the best of the three 499Ps starting 11th on the grid.
In LMGT3, pole position went to the #77 Proton Ford Mustang GT3, whose best time was set by Ben Tuck in FP2.
Lin Hodenius put the #79 Iron Lynx Mercedes in second place, with Hadrien David third in the #78 Lexus.
The points-leading #33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 GT3.R will take the start from 10th in class.
WEC Fuji 6 Hours – Starting Grid
Results to follow
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– The Autosport.com Team
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