BMW Starts 14th and Finishes Third at Fuji — but Loses Its WEC Points Lead
The No. 15 M Hybrid V8 climbed from 14th to third and Augusto Farfus won LMGT3, but a 13th-place finish for the points-leading No. 20 car let Toyota take charge.
BMW left the 6 Hours of Fuji with a trophy in each class and a weaker grip on the championship. The No. 15 M Hybrid V8 climbed from 14th on the grid to third overall, and Team WRT's No. 32 M4 GT3 EVO won LMGT3. But the No. 20 car that arrived as the points leader came home 13th, and Toyota took over the title fight on home soil.
It capped a busy stretch for the Belgian squad, which scored its first IMSA win with BMW at Indianapolis a week earlier.
Heavy rain wiped out qualifying on Saturday, so the grid was set from practice times. That put both Alpines on the front row and left BMW's Hypercars deep in the pack.
The No. 15 crew of Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello, and Dries Vanthoor worked into the top 10 through the middle of the race. The decisive moment came under the final safety car, triggered by a heavy crash for the No. 58 Garage 59 McLaren. BMW kept Vanthoor out on used tires. Toyota went further, according to the series, sending the No. 8 TR010 back out from sixth with no new tires and a short fuel load.
Ryo Hirakawa inherited the lead and held off Victor Martins' Alpine, which had passed Vanthoor on fresh tires, by 0.591 seconds. Vanthoor kept third.
"We didn't have the pace to finish on the podium, but we still did," Magnussen said, crediting the pit wall and the crew.
A costly day for the No. 20
René Rast, Robin Frijns, and Sheldon van der Linde lost their race roughly two hours in after a series of contacts that BMW says weren't their fault. Team principal Vincent Vosse said one of those hits cost the team a lap.
Rast and Frijns arrived at Fuji at the top of the standings and left in third, behind both Toyota crews and just ahead of Magnussen and Marciello. BMW is still second among manufacturers, but post-race standings show Toyota's margin grew from nine points to 23.
Farfus goes from sixth to first in LMGT3
The No. 32 M4 also started 14th. Darren Leung and Sean Gelael moved it into podium contention before Augusto Farfus took over, only for the last safety car and a troubled final stop to drop him to sixth.
On newer tires than most of the cars ahead, Farfus picked them off after the restart and passed Charlie Eastwood's No. 34 Corvette for the lead with under 20 minutes left. He then held off Mattia Drudi's Heart of Racing Aston Martin by 1.062 seconds.
It was the No. 32 crew's first win of 2026 and WRT's second in the class, after the sister No. 69 car won at Imola. It also denied Corvette a third class win this year and extended an unusual streak: six LMGT3 races, six different winners. The No. 69 car led at one stage but fell to sixth after its own messy stop.
Elsewhere, Cadillac placed fifth and seventh, while Genesis, fresh off its best WEC finish at COTA, left without points.
What's next
Two rounds remain: Barcelona on October 18 and the Monza finale on November 8. Barcelona clashes with the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup finale at Portimão, so Marciello, Farfus, and Dan Harper will skip that race. BMW has named Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann, and Neil Verhagen as their stand-ins.
