Two races were held at Fuji Speedway last weekend: the six-hour FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC) and the Race Against Dementia led by champion driver Sir Jackie Stewart OBE, who returned to Japan 60 years after winning the Fuji 200 race to campaign for his charitable foundation and wave the green flag at the start of the race.
Toyota Racing’s #8 crew of Ryo Hirakawa, Sebastian Buemi and Brendon Hartley won the race on the track, beating out the #36 Alpine Endurance Racing crew by 0.591 seconds. #15 BMW M Team WRT came third, 6.415 seconds behind the winner.
After winning “6 hours of Fuji” on September 27, Toyota’s #8 crew now leads the 2026 WEC Hypercar competition with two of eight rounds remaining. The world-famous main event, “24 Hours of Le Mans”, was held on June 13-14.
Racing against dementia is a longer-term challenge. Sir Jackie Stewart, three-time Formula One (F1) World Champion and a leading advocate of safety in auto racing, established the registered charity Race Against Dementia in 2016 after his wife Lady Helen Stewart was diagnosed with the syndrome.
Having been in a near-fatal crash himself in 1966 and having lost five close friends and many more fellow drivers to racing accidents, Stewart said, “If I have any legacy to leave the sport, I hope it will be seen to be an area of safety because when I arrived in Grand Prix racing so-called precautions and safety measures were diabolical.”
Dementia, which the Alzheimer’s Association calls “a general term for loss of memory, language, problem-solving and other thinking abilities that are severe enough to interfere with daily life,” is also diabolical. Alzheimer’s is its most common cause, but there are several types of dementia.
Race Against Dementia informs us that “Over 55 million people worldwide are living with dementia. In just 25 years, that number is estimated to rise to 152 million people. Every three seconds someone develops dementia.”
“Dementia impacts memory, independence and identity, and places a huge strain on families and society. In the UK alone, dementia currently costs £42.5 billion [$56.1 billion] each year. By 2040, that’s expected to more than double. Research is advancing. But progress takes time – and time matters.”
This is where the F1 mindset comes in. “Race Against Dementia applies Formula 1’s precision, teamwork and problem-solving to dementia research.”
As Stewart put it, “Any problem with my racing car and the whole team would work to resolve it – fast. This problem-solving mentality should be applied to medical research.”
In an interview with the Los Angeles Times last May, his son Mark Stewart, who now runs Race Against Dementia as Chairperson of the Board of Trustees, said that the search for a treatment “is itself an endurance race.”
Since 2016, Race Against Dementia has funded close to 90 research scientists working on more than 50 projects exploring new ways to diagnose, treat and prevent dementia. It provides five-year grants to early-career researchers so institutional rigidities don’t compromise their willingness to think outside the box.
Race Against Dementia has also held international conferences focused on rapid problem solving and teamwork, and strategy sessions between dementia researchers and Formula 1 experts.
Active in the UK, Europe, South Africa, Australia, the US and now Japan, it has entered into partnerships with the UK Dementia Research Institute, Alzheimer’s Research UK, Dementia Research Switzerland – Synapsis Foundation, Mayo Clinic USA, Dementia Australia Research Foundation and other institutions.
In July, it was announced that Dr Alex Smith had been selected as the first researcher to receive an AI Innovation Fellowship from Race Against Dementia and the UK Dementia Research Institute. Smith, a mathematician, will use AI to analyze medical records from more than half a million people living with dementia in the UK.
Smith hopes to discover patterns in that huge amount of data that would otherwise be impossible to detect, and develop AI tools to predict how the condition of a person suffering from or being treated for dementia might change over time.
Money, of course, is as important as a can-do attitude and with this in mind, a charity auction via QR code was opened during a gala dinner held at the Fuji Speedway Hotel on September 25 under the title “Fuji 60 – Racing for Memory.”
Items sold to the highest bidder included a crash helmet donated by Nyck de Vries (a driver on Toyota’s #7 crew), two racing suits, a rear bodywork panel from a Peugeot Hypercar, and a high-performance alloy wheel forged by Japan’s RAYS Engineering. Home decor for the racing enthusiast.
Dementia is a serious and growing problem in Japan, where 30% of the population is 65 years of age or older, more than 10% are 80 years of age or older, and more than 100,000 people are over the age of 100.
Japanese government and WHO statistics show the number of people suffering from dementia in Japan currently approaching 5 million, or just over 4% of the population, and rising steadily. The Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) expects that number to reach 9 million by 2040.
In 2005, the Japanese government launched a community support system for people with dementia. The following year, public awareness of dementia in Japan took a big step forward with the release of the movie Memories of Tomorrow (Ashita no Kioku) starring Ken Watanabe.
Best known as “The Last Samurai”, Watanabe plays a Japanese businessman who is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. He forgets the details of his work and the places in Tokyo that he has frequented over the years. He loses his job and, in the end, cannot recognize his own wife. Memories of Tomorrow was well received by critics and was a box-office success. Watch the trailer here.
AMED provides research grants for diagnosing cognitive impairment and dementia, genetic and other clinical research, and developing drugs, treatment therapies, and prevention strategies. Other Japanese government organizations, universities and pharmaceutical companies are also involved in this effort.
Race Against Dementia is relatively new to Japan, having commenced fundraising efforts in April 2025 ahead of the Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix. It does not yet have any research fellows based in Japan but is working with motorsport-related media and others to establish connections with Japanese scientists and medical research organizations.
As the number of people afflicted with dementia in Japan continues to increase, so should interest in the charity’s dynamic approach to problem-solving, partnerships and research grants.
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