Toyota has won the 6 Hours of Fuji, its home round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, and executive vice-president Hiroki Nakajima has published an open message to the team and its fans. According to Nakajima, it was the third time this season that Toyota has stood on the top step of the podium. His message credits engineers, mechanics, strategists and drivers rather than outright pace, and looks back to the team’s earlier Le Mans victory.
Toyota has taken victory at the 6 Hours of Fuji, the race the Japanese manufacturer describes as its home event. In the days after the race, executive vice-president Hiroki “Giano” Nakajima released an open message addressed to the team, to the spectators at the circuit and to fans following from elsewhere.
The statement is a thank-you rather than a technical debrief. Nakajima opens by addressing the drivers and the wider crew directly, saying they converted the expectations of a large home crowd into an advantage.
Congratulations on this victory. And thank you, truly.
With so many fans watching, you turned expectations into strength, overcame immense pressure, and delivered the result. I am truly proud of what you achieved.
The process matters more than the result
What pleases him most, Nakajima writes, is not the win itself but the work behind it. He points to the team’s internal motto, “For the Engineering Race”, and describes individuals refining their skills, learning from earlier failures, communicating openly and supporting one another.
He then splits the credit by role: engineers who “continued racking their brains until the very end”, mechanics who kept the car in the best possible condition, a strategy team that made what he calls courageous calls as conditions changed quickly, and drivers who pushed beyond their limits while trusting both their team-mates and the machinery.
This was not a victory earned through speed alone.
It was a victory earned through human effort.
Third time on the top step this season
Nakajima states that the Fuji result marked the third time this season that the team has finished on the top step of the podium, and says it no longer feels like a one-off: in his words, everything the team has built together “is beginning to turn into genuine strength”.
He also returns to a remark he made after Le Mans, when he said the team had changed. Credit there goes to Morizo — the racing name used by Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda — for pursuing better car-making through motorsport and for building an environment in which team members can take on challenges and show what they can do. Presenting the Le Mans winner’s trophy to Morizo, Nakajima writes, was the moment a promise was fulfilled, but the trophy “was never the finish line”.
What it means
For a manufacturer that has made endurance racing a core part of its engineering culture, the tone of the message is as notable as the result. There are no performance claims and no product references in it — the emphasis is on people, process and continuity across a season, and on an ambition Nakajima sets out plainly: to keep challenging for a position as the best in the world.
The message closes with thanks for continued support of Toyota Racing. The company has not published further competition details alongside the statement.
Source: newsroom.toyota.eu