24h Le Mans
On 7 November 1999, the Automobile Club de l
The 1,000 kilometres of Fuji had a 23-car grid that day. Among them was the Toyota GT-One. With Toshio Suzuki, Ukyo Katayama and Keiichi Tsuchiya at the wheel, the car started off by bagging pole position and then clocked up the best race lap time but had to concede first place to the Nissan R391 driven by Erik Comas, Satoshi Motoyama and Masami Kageyama. Hiroki Katou and Juichi Wakisaka came in third with the Dome BMW.
The Toyota GT-One had a 24 Hours of Le Mans victory within its grasp twice, in 1998 and 1999. The Suzuki-Katayama-Tsuchiya trio came second in 1999, the best result to date for a Japanese team. Several other drivers who were on the grid in Fuji in 1999 have raced at Le Mans:
1999 Fuji-winner Satoshi Motoyama drove the innovative Nissan DeltaWing when it was the Garage 56 non-competition entry in 2012.
Seventh in a Viper in Fuji, Seiji Ara went on to win the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2004 in the Audi R8 alongside Tom Kristensen and Dindo Capello.
Laurent Aiello, Allan McNish and Stéphane Ortelli won Le Mans in 1998 but had to retire from the 1999 Fuji race.
Just like the first running of Petit Le Mans in Atlanta in 1998 launched the American Le Mans Series, initially, the 1,000 kilometres of Fuji was to mark the beginning of an endurance series. However, the Asian version took longer to get off the ground, partly because Nissan and Toyota pulled the plug on their endurance campaigns after the 1999 season. It actually took fifteen years for the idea to become a reality when the Asian Le Mans Series was launched in 2013. The 2015–16 season will be kicking off on 10 October and the 6 Hours of Fuji, the sixth round in the World Endurance Championship, will be run the next day.
Jean-Philippe Doret /ACO – Translated from French by Emma Paulay
Photo: LE MANS (SARTHE, FRANCE), CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES, LE MANS 24 HOURS, SATURDAY 13 & 14 JUNE 1999. Erik Comas (pictured at the wheel) and Satoshi Motoyama won the 1,000 kilometres of Fuji with Masami Kageyama while in Le Mans they were teamed with German driver Michael Krumm.
