24h Le Mans
The sixth leg of the 2016 World Endurance Championship (WEC) will take place at Fuji Speedway on Sunday 16 October. Unlike the previous round in Austin (CotA), Texas, there will be no night-time racing in Japan.
And – quite unusually for the 6 Hours of Fuji! – the weather is forecast to be fine, much to the delight of the (many) Japanese fans. There could be a few showers during scrutineering on Thursday morning, but that doesn’t matter because the cars only take to the track on Friday.
That day will start with a briefing at 8:45, then the drivers will take their cars out for the first 90-minute free practice session at 10:45. There will be a second session at 15:30 and a final one-hour practice session on Saturday morning at 10:00. After that, it will be time for the long-awaited pit walk from 12:15 to 13:45 with an autograph session from 12:30 to 13:00.
The afternoon before the race is traditionally reserved for qualifying with two 20-minute sessions, one for the LM GTE Pro and LM GTE Am classes at 14:00 and the other for LM P1 and LM P2 cars. The average of the best times attained by both drivers at these sessions is taken to calculate the qualifying time and establish the starting grid.
There is no warm-up at World Endurance Championship (WEC) races, but spectators at Fuji, who would be frontrunners for the title of best fans in the world, are treated to a second autograph session – as long as they are early-risers! During the race day pit walk held between 8:00 and 9:00, the drivers will be out from 8:10 to 8:40, ready to sign autographs or pose for a memorable selfie.
The grid will start to form at 10:00 and the race will start at 11:00 (local time), which is 3am in the UK and 10pm on the North American east coast.
Photo: spectators are treated to a show before the start of the 2015 6 Hours of Fuji
