Toyota picked up their first World Endurance Championship victory since 2014 in the 6 Hours of Fuji courtesy of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin.
The majority of the race was dominated by #8 Audi of Lucas di Grassi, Oliver Jarvis and Loic Duval, who started from pole position. The #6 Toyota managed to stay with the #8 Audi into the latter stages of the race and opted not to pit for fresh rubber.
Kobayashi took the lead of the race and was 13 seconds clear of Duval in the #8 Audi, who began to close the gap quickly on fresher tyres. The Japanese driver did enough to win on home soil and crossed the line with a lead of just 1.439s seconds to give Toyota their first win since Bahrain in 2014.
The #1 Porsche of Mark Webber, Brendon Hartley and Timo Bernhard rounded off the podium but seemed to lack the ultimate pace required to challenge for the win in Fuji.
The #5 Toyota of Sebastien Buemi, Anthony Davidson and Kazuki Nakajima were a distant fourth ahead of Neel Jani, Romain Dumas and Marc Lieb in the #2 Porsche who came home fifth.
Luck wasn’t on the side of the #7 Audi car of Andre Lotterer, Marcel Fassler and Benoit Treluyer, who were forced to retire after suffering a hybrid system failure.
Rebellion Racing secured the LMP1 Privateers title as Dominik Kraihamer, Matteo Tuscher and Alexandre Imperatori took their fifth category win of 2016.
In the LMP2 class, G-Drive Racing stormed to the win in Fuji, Will Stevens taking the chequered flag.
Ford took a 1-2 in the LMGTE Pro class, dominating from the start. Harry Tincknell and Andy Priaulx took the victory.
Aston Martin Racing took a comfortable victory in the LMGTE Am class as Paul Dalla Lana, Mathias Lauda and Pedro Lamy dominated proceedings in Japan.
