After a near-winless 2025 campaign, Toyota – the most successful marque in FIA World Endurance Championship history – vowed to come out fighting this year and has done exactly that, but four rounds in, BMW is becoming an ever-more potent threat...
Ahead of last season’s Bahrain finale, Toyota had not reached the top step of the FIA WEC rostrum in 12 months – and that clearly hurt. For 2026, the Japanese automotive giant duly rolled out an upgraded version of its Hypercar – the TR010 Hybrid – and the new model triumphed straight off the bat in the curtain-raising contest at Imola, where Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa got the better of a close duel with Ferrari’s defending world champions Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi to prevail.
Round two at Spa-Francorchamps would prove to be more of a challenge, but from a lowly 12th on the starting grid in the Ardennes, the sister #7 Toyota scythed through the high-calibre field to finish fifth in the hands of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries. Five weeks later, the trio went on to conquer the 94th edition of the legendary 24 Hours of Le Mans, following an enthralling three-way tussle with BMW and Cadillac.
A pair of double podiums has installed Toyota at the summit of the Manufacturers’ standings, five points clear of BMW, but it is the latter’s Robin Frijns and René Rast that top the Drivers’ table at the midway stage of the season – an indication of just how far the German carmaker has come.
BMW entered the current campaign with only two rostrum results to its credit from 16 races in the series’ top-tier, and while able to manage no better than fifth at Imola, the Bavarian brand has achieved at least a second-place finish in each of the subsequent three rounds.
That included a sensational top two lockout in Belgium – home turf for the Team WRT-run outfit – by dint of a bold strategy call from a long way back on the grid, as well as the runner-up spoils for Frijns, Rast and Sheldon van der Linde at Le Mans and a first victory for the #15 M Hybrid V8 of Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor last time out at Interlagos, where Toyota languished down the order and came away empty-handed.
With four rounds in the books, there is nothing to separate Frijns and Rast from Kobayashi, Conway and Vries in the quest for Drivers’ glory, although it was the BMW duo that entered the annual summer break with bragging rights courtesy of second place at La Sarthe to their Toyota rivals’ third place in Italy, while van der Linde is ten points behind having missed the opening race.
Giovinazzi, Calado and Pier Guidi are next up for Ferrari, but in truth, it has been a disappointing title defence for the Prancing Horse. Pole position in its backyard of Imola marked a strong start, but the runner-up spoils there and in São Paulo have been the sole real highlights thus far – leaving the famous Maranello-based marque determined to respond over the remaining four events.
Cadillac has somewhat flattered to deceive in 2026, coming away with little to show for the V-Series.R’s palpable pace in the opening two outings and taking the chequered flag ‘only’ fourth at Le Mans after lining up on the front row of the grid around the Circuit de la Sarthe for the third consecutive year.
The Anglo-American Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA alliance belatedly returned to the rostrum in Brazil for the first time in 12 months, but again, a better result had looked to be on the cards until misfortune struck…
Alpine is similarly aiming to convert its evident qualifying pace into race day success, with Les Bleus’ best finish to-date being fourth place in Italy for António Félix da Costa, Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg. Aston Martin, meanwhile, has carried over the momentum from its encouraging end to 2025 by tallying points in every race so far in the striking green Valkyrie’s sophomore season in FIA WEC. A first podium is surely not far away…
Peugeot is still seeking to reproduce the stellar form that enabled Malthe Jakobsen to secure pole position at Spa on a regular basis – with the 9X8 struggling to maintain its unquestionable single-lap speed over longer distances. Motorsport newcomer Genesis, finally, has been a revelation in its maiden campaign of competition, scoring points in only its second start and getting both of its GMR-001 prototypes into the top ten on the grid at Le Mans.
For the ambitious South Korean brand, great things undoubtedly await, and for fans, too, the second half of the campaign – beginning with Lone Star Le Mans at Austin’s Circuit of The Americas in Texas on 4-6 September – promises to be unmissable, with the Hypercar title fight finely-poised and plentiful twists-and-turns assuredly yet to come…
Check out the current championship classification.
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