Ryō Hirakawa

I don't wanna say what's in my head 'cause that will sound so terrible.

Uh, R- Ryo Hirakawa.

Yes.

Yes.

Him.

Oh, okay.

Ryo Hirakawa.

Yeah.

best place for next season because if you're fighting in the midfield in formula one there's much more money to be made by having a super fast driver that moves you up the constructors championship than there is to take a slow driver with extra sponsorship

exactly and they've they have not ever been compelled to take ferrari drivers ferrari pushed quite hard for antonio giovannazzi to get the race seat a few years ago they didn't do it because they thought you're good but you're not not quite good enough but i think actually has to have played a Hirakawa, they took as a serious option, who's been quick, actually.

He has been impressive.

He was a genuine contender, but he hasn't emerged as ultimately the best, and there could have been Toyota benefits there as well.

in Japan, and sure enough, for the World Endurance Championship, they had an absolute deluge over the weekend.

The rain arrived, but they had, for the World Endurance Championship, a brilliant six hours of Fuji, and it was won by the number eight Toyota with local boy, Ryo Hirakawa, putting in a sensational final stint, an absolute masterclass on home soil.

to anchor a sensational victory in the six hours of Fuji.

Now, Victor Martins and the number 36 Alpine had looked pretty dominant, pretty much unstoppable all the way through the day.

So they've had Leo Forneroni, who's the current F2, or yeah, reigning F2 champion.

They've had Ryo Hirakawa, their reserve driver.

But I think the front runner at the moment, and there have been suggestions that he's already done the deal.

I'm not 100% sure on that, but I think he would certainly be the front runner is Rafa Kamra, who's currently leading the F2 championship and he's taken a very similar trajectory to Fornaroli and he's won F3 with Trident gone to Invicta and now he's leading the championship what we don't know is how many races F2 has left this season you know he could be you know he could be the champion now yeah because they added the extra race in Baku just to kind of make sure in theory there's two more rounds but we don't know for sure so he might already be the champion

Will Stevens two and a half seconds up the road.

Much closer though for Ryo Hirakawa.

It was about a lap ago, but he's in danger of losing touch with the matcher, Yamane-driven Genesis.

That time across the line, there was almost a full second between the 19 Genesis and Ryo Hirakawa.

So Hirakawa's best opportunity was to make the pass two laps ago.

And he comes barreling into turn number three.

The one thing that goes in Ryo Hirokawa's favour is that Marvin Kirchhoff is not going to want to hold back at the restart.

That's the car immediately ahead of the Japanese, because Kirchhoff is on for a podium, but he'll want to try and get a jump on the two Corvettes ahead.

Well, just an experiment, and one of the Toyotas actually went off the road there.

I think that was Ryo Hirakawa, although there was an Aston Martin Valkyrie fully alongside him at the time.

the weather patterns here at Fuji because of where we are right in the shadow of Mount Fuji because of the valley that runs all the way down it's impossible to know what the weather's going to be like that was Harry Ticknell going past in the Aston Martin I can tell that just from the noise of the engine they've done okay in the early sessions will that translate into race pace it hasn't always we've got some driver changes to talk about with particularly with Alpine, because they've decided to go to two drivers for each car here, Geoffrey.

Yeah, and some very late decisions as well.

And that, speaking of, leads us to Portimao.

where Haas put up Ferrari Junior Rafael Câmara, McLaren Junior Leo Fornaroli and Toyota backed Ryo Hirakawa through a test of a previous car with current driver Berman giving them the yardstick.

The Brazilian's test reportedly impressed the team, but impressed is the best we can conclude because he ran in different conditions to Hirakawa and Fornaroli, so to say he won that shootout really isn't fair.

But why has he emerged as the favourite? Well, I mean, for starters, he won the 2024 Formula Regional Championship.

It gave Haas information rather than just hype to work with.

And Toyota does count for something here.

Because you might be thinking of Ryo Hirakawa's involvement and be thinking, oh, he's just a token driver and nothing more.

Well, come on, he's had his own fair share of success too in other categories.

So we know that Haas are kind of at the beck and call of that.

But the other ones available to them that they've been testing, Ryo Hirakawa, who races for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship and the Le Mans 24 Hours.

Obviously, Toyota have invested a little bit in the Haas team as well, because we keep thinking like they're using their facilities, they're giving them staff.

Is Toyota going to end up you know, investing more and maybe taking over the naming rights of the team or something like that.