12 months ago the Japanese round of the World Endurance Championship at Fuji Speedway was a complete washout. The 6 hour race was shortened to just 16 laps, all of which were run behind the safety car due to a deluge.
Quite the opposite happened this year though. The event lasted the full 6 hours for most of the competitors, but not so for the new Lotus/Kodewa/CLM team whose race ended three quarters of the way through due to a massive fire. French driver Christophe Bouchut stopped the flaming car in the entrance of the pit lane before jumping out of the inferno. It took fire marshalls and equipment so long to reach the scene that first response were pit crew members of Lotus rivals Rebellion Racing, managing to put the fire out before the leaking fuel reignited itself. Scary stuff, especially in the entrance a live pit lane. Fan MattSun captured it all from the stands in the video above.
The brand new Lotus LMP1 model had only made its debut 3 weeks before at Circuit of the Americas, so clearly there’s a few kinks in the fuel lines that need ironing out. Not with an actual iron, though, as that’ll start another fire.