Toyota entered this weekend’s Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain staring down the barrel of a winless FIA World Endurance Championship campaign for the first time in a decade. Courtesy of a peerless performance in Sakhir, the Japanese carmaker banished that prospect in fine fashion.
Toyota might be FIA WEC’s most successful manufacturer by some margin, but the 2025 season has been a tough one for the brand, and heading to Bahrain International Circuit, neither of its crews had set foot upon any step of the podium this year, let alone the highest one. This evening, they occupied the top two spots.
Having locked out the front row of the grid in qualifying 24 hours earlier, TOYOTA GAZOO Racing’s pair of GR010 Hybrid Hypercars dominated proceedings in the desert over the course of a compelling eight-hour contest that started in daylight and ended after dark.
The pole-sitting #7 Hypercar piloted by Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries led the majority of the race, ultimately taking the chequered flag a shade under 20 seconds ahead of the sister #8 car shared by Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa.
New Zealand’s Hartley – four times a world champion in FIA WEC’s top-tier – took charge early on courtesy of an audacious tyre strategy. A drive-through penalty for overtaking under yellow flags during Buemi’s stint behind the wheel subsequently dropped the #8 entry down the order, but the fortuitous timing of a late safety car intervention threw the trio a lifeline, which they grasped with both hands to complete a Toyota one-two and extend the marque’s phenomenal Bahrain record.
If TGR was happy, then Ferrari was overjoyed, as the Prancing Horse successfully clinched both the Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ Hypercar crowns at the end of a season in which the Ferrari 499P has largely been a cut above its prototype rivals.
A fourth-place finish – sandwiched between the #50 and #83 Ferraris – proved more than enough for the #51 crew of Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi to secure the Drivers’ spoils. AF Corse’s Robert Kubica, Phil Hanson and Yifei Ye sealed the runner-up spot in the title table, with Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina placing third overall in the second of the factory cars.
The #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R (Alex Lynn / Norman Nato / Will Stevens) wound up sixth in the race ahead of Aston Martin THOR Team’s #009 Valkyrie (Marco Sørensen / Alex Riberas / Roman De Angelis) in seventh – on a day that had at one stage promised much more for the famous British manufacturer, whose new-for-2025 Hypercar deservedly led a world championship event for the very first time in the hands of the Spaniard.
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