Cars & Autos | Thursday 1 November, 2018 3:00 am |

Toyota GAZOO Racing (GR) delighted an enthusiastic home crowd by recently earning a one-two victory at the 6 Hours of Fuji in Japan, the fourth round of the 2018-19 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).

A compelling race saw the No. 7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid‎ of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and José María López cross the line in front, just 11.44 seconds ahead of team-mates Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima, and Fernando Alonso in the No. 8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid‎, for their first win of the season despite starting eighth.

The achievement marked Toyota's third one-two victory in the 2018 WEC and its sixth win from seven WEC races at its home circuit, while for Conway and Kobayashi it is their first victory since a memorable triumph at Fuji Speedway in 2016. It was a particularly special race for López, who set the fastest lap and earned his first-ever WEC win, having joined the team last season.

The result extends Toyota GR's lead in the teams' World Championship to 14 points over its closest rival team. Buemi, Nakajima and Alonso stretched their advantage in the drivers' standings, with Conway, Kobayashi, and López moving up to second, 13 points behind.

Lopez set what turned out to be the fastest lap of the race on lap 153, and he kept a stable gap at the front until handing the lead to Kobayashi with just over 30 minutes remaining. Kobayashi had the honor of taking the checkered flag in the No. 7, with Nakajima bringing the No. 8 home second for a perfect team result.

Over the years, Toyota has been participating in many different forms of motorsports, ‎including Formula One, WEC and the Nürburgring 24 ‎Hours endurance race. Toyota’s participation in these events was overseen by separate ‎entities within the company until April 2015, when Toyota established GR ‎to consolidate all of its motorsports activities under one in-house brand. Representing ‎Toyota’s belief that ‘the roads build the people, and the people build the cars,’ GR highlights the role of motorsports as a fundamental pillar of Toyota’s commitment to ‎making ‘ever-better’ cars. Harnessing years of experience gained under the extreme ‎conditions of various motorsports events, GR aims to forge new ‎technologies and solutions that bring the freedom, adventure, and joy of driving to everyone.

The team is determined to repeat that result when WEC heads to China for the final race in 2018 and the fifth of eight races this season, the 6 Hours of Shanghai, on Sunday, November 18. ‬