Toyota celebrated its 100th FIA World Endurance Championship appearance with an incredible 50th victory in the 2026 curtain-raising contest at Imola today (19 April), following an enthralling nip-and-tuck duel with home favourite Ferrari.
The two automotive titans began the six-hour contest from the front row of the grid around the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari, following the closest overall qualifying session in FIA WEC history.
In front of a record Imola attendance of 92,175 enthusiastic fans, the start was given by Formula 1 World Championship leader, Kimi Antonelli, and Ferrari delighted the ever-devoted tifosi thronging the circuit grandstands and banking by running first and second early on, with James Calado in the #51 499P leading team-mate Miguel Molina in the sister #50 Hypercar.
Having conceded a spot at lights-out, the #8 Toyota piloted by Brendon Hartley regained second place during the opening round of pit-stops. The next time the heavily-revised TR010 Hybrid pulled into its box – just before the two-hour mark – Toyota elected not to change tyres in order to seize track position, catapulting Ryō Hirakawa past the #51 Ferrari into the lead.
Alessandro Pier Guidi subsequently did his utmost to reclaim the initiative in a memorable face-off between the reigning world championship-wining marque and the most successful brand in the series’ history – but the latter had an ace up its sleeve.
While the #50 Ferrari fell down the order after picking up a drive-through penalty for a yellow flag infringement, the #7 Toyota came increasingly into play, with the team repeating its earlier strategic masterstroke to enable Kamui Kobayashi to leapfrog Antonio Giovinazzi into second just past the four-hour mark.
With the Japanese driver frustrating his Italian rival’s every effort to redress the balance, the sister #8 Toyota – now in the hands of Sébastien Buemi – was able to edge increasingly away. The Ferrari moved back ahead of the second of the Toyotas during the final round of stops by employing a similar tactic, but by then, the leading TR010 Hybrid was out of reach, going on to take the chequered flag just over 13 seconds ahead.
“This feels so good,” enthused Hartley, whose last win came in the final race of 2024 in Bahrain. “The big, crucial thing happened yesterday with Ryō putting it on the front row in qualifying, which came out of nowhere – we weren’t expecting that and it gave us a tailwind going into the race.
“I lost a place to the #50 into Turn One, but we kept our heads down, managed the tyres well and the team played the strategy to perfection. Then at the end, there was the big team effort with Kamui [Kobayashi] staying out and jumping the #51, and it’s nice to have a race play out with no faults or mistakes from anyone in the team. A lot of work has gone into this new car, so to take its first victory feels really special. What a start to the season!”
Defending title-holders Giovinazzi, Calado and Pier Guidi secured the runner-up spoils, with Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries rounding out the rostrum in third. Behind the podium-finishers, Alpine took fourth place with its #35 A424 Hypercar crewed by António Félix da Costa, Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg.
Not much further back, a fierce fight for fifth was ultimately resolved in favour of the #20 BMW ahead of the recovering #50 Ferrari, the #15 BMW and the #38 Cadillac – the quartet blanketed by less than a second-and-a-half. The #12 Cadillac looked to be in the mix for a top three finish early on, until Will Stevens fell foul of the same yellow flag indiscretion as Molina in the #50 Ferrari.
In LMGT3, Team WRT extended BMW’s excellent record at Imola, as the Belgian squad benefitted from late-race heartbreak for series newcomer Garage 59 to triumph for the second time in three years in Italy ahead of TF Sport. The #69 BMW crossed the finish line barely a quarter-of-a-second in front of the #33 Corvette, while the pole-sitting #10 McLaren suffered alternator failure while on-course for victory just half-an-hour from the end.
The 2026 campaign continues with the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium on 7-9 May.
Check out the full results from the 6 Hours of Imola.
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