WHEN PRACTICE BECOMES QUALIFYING.
Nobody went into Fuji’s three Free Practice sessions knowing they were setting the grid.
Then the weather changed the rules of the day.
With qualifying cancelled, laps driven for setup, long runs, tyre work - or simply finding pace - suddenly carried a different weight. The fastest times from practice would decide the grid.
Sometimes, the laps that count most are the ones you didn’t know would count.
Photos by @dppiimages
Fuji is a circuit of contrasts. One of the longest straights in WEC. A technical final sector. A history that started with plans for something very different altogether.
And then there are the stories written here - home victories, poles that led nowhere, and more than a decade of WEC racing beneath one of motorsport’s most unmistakable backdrops.
There’s more to Fuji than the mountain.
Swipe through. →
Photos by @dppiimages
INSIDE / FUJI SPEEDWAY
FUJI, Illustrated. 🇯🇵 A circuit in the shadow of Mount Fuji.
A landscape that hardly needs an introduction. Victor’s take on FIA WEC Fuji - from the first sketch to the finished piece.
Swipe to see how it came together.
Artwork by Victor Okhakhume aka @trivsdraws
BUSHI REX. 🦖🇯🇵
Part dinosaur. Part samurai.
Now a Suzuka 1000km winner.
Some liveries arrive with a story already written.
Photos by @gruppec_photography
CLOSER. You don’t always need the whole car.
Zandvoort, up close, through the lens of Pedro Dermaux.
Photos by @panningpedro
From seventh to the lead. Then, ten minutes changed everything.
The #7 Toyota had worked its way through the field at COTA, with Nyck de Vries taking the lead and building a six-second advantage in the closing stages. With barely ten minutes remaining, a hydraulic pressure issue affected the power steering.
After almost six hours of racing, the #7 was out.
No result to show for it. But for most of that afternoon in Texas, Toyota had turned P7 into a race that looked theirs to lose.
Photos by @dppiimages
0.000. That was the difference in the fight for pole at COTA.
Jack Aitken put the #38 Cadillac around the circuit in 1:52.445.
Antonio Giovinazzi did exactly the same.
Same lap time, down to the thousandth.
Ferrari took pole because Giovinazzi had set the time first.
A day later, the #38 was still right in the middle of the fight.
Aitken, Sébastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber kept the Cadillac in contention through the six hours and eventually brought it home in second.
Sometimes racing gives you metres.
Sometimes seconds.
And sometimes, absolutely nothing separates you at all.
Photos by @dppiimages
Some patterns are too good not to notice. In 2024, the #50 Ferrari left COTA in third.
In 2025, second.
In 2026, there was only one place left to go.
Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco and Nicklas Nielsen took the 499P to victory at the Lone Star Le Mans, giving Ferrari its first win of the season.
Three consecutive visits to COTA. Three podiums. And a sequence that couldn’t have been written much better.
Photos by @dppiimages
There are easier places to lose your air conditioning. Mattia Drudi had to finish the Lone Star Le Mans without it, fighting the Texas heat while bringing the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin home for the LMGT3 victory.
Behind him, the sister #23 finished third - completing a double Aston Martin podium at Heart of Racing’s home WEC round.
Two years after their last win here, Heart of Racing came back to COTA and gave the home crowd another one to remember.
Photos by @dppiimages
Six hours in Austin. Here we go! One last take on COTA before the Lone Star Le Mans gets underway.
Amazing Artwork by @fat_factor_creation for DITPL
Texas, turned all the way up. The Mustang. The tower. Stars and stripes.
Our take on COTA as the FIA WEC returns to Austin for the Lone Star Le Mans.
Artwork by Victor Okhakhume aka @trivsdraws
Some circuits are difficult to win.
COTA can be difficult just to finish.
Ahead of this weekend’s Lone Star Le Mans, a few numbers worth knowing.
Swipe through. →
Photos by @dppiimages
INSIDE / 10
Not everything worth seeing happens at the front. GT World Challenge Nürburgring, in fragments.
Photography by @panningpedro | @xynamic
A GT3 grid is a study in different ideas.
At the GT World Challenge Nürburgring this weekend, some of the world’s leading manufacturers are racing under the same GT3 regulations - yet look at the cars from behind and no two solutions are quite the same.
Rear wings are shaped by compromise. Downforce against drag. Grip against speed. And the constant search for balance.
Sometimes the smallest details tell you the most about a racing car.
Photography by @jakobebrey | @gtworldcheu
INSIDE / 09
The #80. The Nordschleife. 24 hours. Victory. 🏆
Three months later.
Still one for the books.
Photography by @gruppec_phtography
Five months can change a lot. When the Lamborghini Temerario GT3 made its racing debut at Sebring in March, Pfaff Motorsports was beginning the process of learning and developing an entirely new car.
At Road America came the first victory.
At VIR, pole position and a second consecutive win.
Now, with two rounds remaining, Andrea Caldarelli and Sandy Mitchell sit just 56 points from the GTD PRO championship lead.
From learning a new car to fighting at the front.
Five months can change a lot.
Photography by Fred Hardy II | Lamborghini
One of those Spa frames we keep coming back to. A good day to bring it back, too!
Happy birthday, Dennis Marschall. 🍰
Photography by @gruppec_phtography
