He’s the most decorated driver in FIA World Endurance Championship history, and also the one counting the most race appearances. But more than that, Sébastien Buemi has earned the respect of the paddock for his famed professionalism and dedication to his craft.
Four world championship titles, four 24 Hours of Le Mans victories and a mammoth 26 outright race wins is a haul for the ages. Buemi has been almost a constant presence in the series, and as it approaches 100 races, he spent some time with fiawec.com to talk about some key memories of a career that shows no signs of slowing up.
In 2012, Buemi’s career was in a transitionary phase. Three seasons in Formula 1 with the Toro Rosso team were coming to an end and a new challenge in endurance sportscar racing was on the horizon.
A match-up with Toyota felt natural, not only in terms of the attention-to-detail and focus needed for such a programme, but also because Buemi had some ties with the Japanese manufacturer through his family’s business in Aigle, Switzerland, where a national dealership that majors on Toyotas has been based for half a century.
So the time was ripe for Buemi and Toyota to converge in the exciting new world of FIA WEC.
“Obviously back in 2012, to team up with the FIA gives a lot of status to the championship, and then to get the world championship title, it really adds extra credibility,” he recalls.
“We went through the LMP years, with more people joining like Porsche, even Nissan, which was looking amazing, but with hindsight, maybe not sustainable on the financial side.
“Now again there is the big success (of Hypercar) and having many people involved, so to a great extent, I would say that it’s been a real success what the FIA and ACO have managed to do. Because even if now it looks amazing to have so many manufacturers, this was not a given at the time.”
Buemi spent the early FIA WEC races not on the grid but rather at the test track, developing the initial Toyota LMP1 car – the TS030.
His first competitive event was at Le Mans in 2012, when his car retired after Anthony Davidson’s terrifying accident.
But the following campaign in 2013 brought a first podium at Silverstone and then a maiden win at the season finale in Bahrain, alongside team-mates Davidson and Stéphane Sarrazin.
By 2014, Buemi took the first of his four titles and in 2018 his first Le Mans was also notched up. By this stage, he’d entered the pantheon of endurance racing greats and become an ever-present in the Toyota stable, to such an extent that at this season’s Rolex 6 Hours of São Paulo, it actually felt incongruous that his name wasn’t above the garage.
“I’m very proud that I was there almost from the beginning,” he says.
“I have been a part of not only Toyota but also FIA WEC and it’s been nice. You know, I saw a good interview with Fernando Alonso recently and he was saying that when he looks back at his career, he feels like he did not enjoy the good moments enough.
“I feel a bit the same actually. I feel like I’ve not enjoyed the good moments enough, let’s say, so hopefully there are still some good moments coming that I will try to enjoy more. You are always looking forward to the next race, next phase, the next challenge, and even if you win you are happy for a couple of days, but then you focus on the next one constantly.
“So maybe the day I stop, I will look at it and feel like I should have maybe enjoyed more, I don’t know. But in the end, I’m happy, and I’m proud also that I’ve been with Toyota for that whole time.”
Among his multitude of stellar drives, shining memories and glittering performances, one really stands out for Buemi in his 13 years of appearing in FIA WEC races – winning in Bahrain in 2024, and who could argue with that.
This was a phenomenal drive, which initially looked to be just for pride after being tipped into a spin in the opening exchanges. But after completing his first stints, Buemi had remarkably got the #8 Toyota into something approaching a competitive state.
And more was to come. When he took over for his second tranche of stints at the wheel with two-and-a-half hours remaining, what once appeared to be a slim chance of capturing another Manufacturers’ title for Toyota was back on. Buemi smelt blood.
“Bahrain last year was very special because we became world champions again as a Manufacturer, with no excuse of people saying, ‘you were on your own and there was no-one really to beat’.
“Everyone was there. And that race, we all had kind of high emotions because things went badly (with the spin). We were at the back. And then when I jumped in again we were like tenth.
“We had a good strategy, and I was able to pass [others] and obviously win, and then win the championship at the same time. Emotionally, it was one of the best and we were proud that we beat everyone at the last moment.
“I could tell you the first win at Le Mans or the first championship, especially the championship in 2014 when we beat Porsche, but this one (in Bahrain), I feel like nobody can say anything against it because we’d been living with a lot of people saying, ‘but they only won when they were on their own’.
“I feel like nobody can really say that anymore.”
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