HELLO KITTY

Fuji Speedway, the Peugeot 9X8 Hypercar, and us getting in the way. It's official endurance racing is back on the map

- TOM FORD

THERE'S NOTHING LIKE A JAPANESE PITWALK TO FIRE UP THE ENGINES OF THE SURREAL.

Over to one side, a mascot clad head to toe in primary coloured nylon staggers into a barrier and dislodges their own oversized head, obviously overcome by 40°C heat and humidity that makes the air breathe like warm cotton wool. Mechanics clad in various team-based and sponsor uniforms stride about doing Important Car Things, while a portly man follows them around pushing a plush three-foot-high doll in a pram. Grown women dressed in weirdly abbreviated school gym outfits totter around on ankle-crippling five-inch heels as GT cars spit and fuss at idle, and overhead, a platoon of military types rappel from a hovering helicopter just over the start/finish straight. Just as we pass, a man with a T-shirt cannon accidentally shoots a spectator in the face with a balled-up garment, but seeing as the victim is in the 40th row of grandstand seating, it's probably not fatal.

Among all this, blissfully calm and broadcasting a comforting aura of favourite uncle, is Jean-Marc Finot, big boss of Stellantis Motorsport. He is, by my estimation and limited experience, one of the nicest men in motor racing. So far, he's been patient with my enthusiastic but naive questioning, understanding about the vagaries of trying to do a filmed interview on a busy pit walk, and has politely failed to mention the fact that I'm sweating so aggressively that my head is starting to look like a massive pink sultana.