Toyota won the 6 Hours of Fuji 2013 at Fuji Speedway. The #7 Toyota TS030 Hybrid of Toyota Gazoo Racing covered 16 laps over 2h 56m, a race distance of 73 km. The winning crew: Alexander Wurz, Nicolas Lapierre and Kazuki Nakajima. The margin to second place was just 1.901 s. The quickest manufacturer over one lap was Audi — but the win went to Toyota. Pace and result do not always match.
The race did not go the full distance: the flag came out after 2h 56m instead of the scheduled 6 hours. Distance and average speed below reflect that shortened race.
How the Lead Was Won
Across the race we counted 1 lead change among 2 different cars in the LMP1 class. At the closest point, first and second were only 1.9 s apart. For 2 of 2 measured hours the gap stayed under 30 seconds.
That is a real head-to-head fight, not a comfortable lead.
Manufacturer Pace
We rank pace by the average of each manufacturer’s fastest lap. That measures real speed over the distance instead of one lucky lap. The order at the top: Audi (117.7 km/h), Toyota (105.2 km/h), Lola (103.2 km/h).
Between the fastest and the slowest manufacturer in the LMP1 class lie 14.5 km/h. That is a wide spread. At this track, the concept differences show clearly.
Figure 1 sets the pace order side by side.
Reliability by Class
All 29 cars were classified at the flag. A race without a single retirement is rare and says a lot about how it was run.
Reliability decided nothing here, so the result came down to pace and strategy alone.
Figure 2 compares the classes directly.
Efficiency Over the Distance
Our efficiency score multiplies average lap speed by laps completed and compares that to the class average. It rewards cars that were fast and stayed out of trouble. A value of 1.000 is exactly class average.
The top score goes to #1 Audi with 1.221. The winner, #7, is not on top here. Track position and strategy turned into a result that raw efficiency alone does not explain.
Figure 3 ranks the cars by that score.
Fastest Lap and Class Gaps
The fastest single lap of the race belongs to #1 Audi (Audi Sport Team Joest): 2:04.095 at 132.4 km/h. Crew: André Lotterer, Benoit Tréluyer and Marcel Fässler.
Between LMP1 and LMP2 sits a pace gap of 4.1 s per lap. That number decides how much traffic the leaders have to work through.
Class winners — LMP1: #7 Toyota (Toyota Gazoo Racing), LMP2: #35 Morgan (OAK Racing), LMGTE Pro: #97 Aston Martin (Aston Martin Racing), LMGTE Am: #95 Aston Martin (Aston Martin Racing).
Putting the Race in Context
The winner averaged 24.9 km/h across 73 km. On a 4.563 km lap, that is the pace the whole strategy had to sustain.
We calculate the same metrics for every race in the archive: pace order, reliability by class, lead changes, winning margin, closing stability and efficiency. That makes this race directly comparable with every other round of the 2013 season — and with the seasons before it.
All figures are derived from the full classification of every race hour and are recalculated with each build.
