Toyota claimed a commanding 1-2 finish on the World Endurance Championship’s first visit to Barcelona to secure the manufacturers’ title in Hypercar with a round to spare.
Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa remained largely unchallenged in the #8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid over the six-hour race, beating the sister car of Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway in changeable wet/dry conditions.
The result marked the third victory of the season for the #8 crew, giving them a 17-point advantage over their Le Mans 24 Hours-winning squadmates heading into the Monza finale next month.
With the #20 BMW M Hybrid failing to score for the third race in succession following an early issue with tyre pressures, the two Toyotas remain the only crews still in contention for the drivers’ title heading into the Monza finale next month.
Story of the race
The entire field started on wet tyres following heavy showers earlier in the day, with the track still visibly wet as the safety car retreated to the pits following an extra formation lap.
As the race got underway, Daniel Juncadella made the best launch from third on the grid, propelling the #19 Genesis GMR-001 to the front. But the Spaniard skated off the track at Turn 5 and dropped to the back of the pack, allowing Buemi - who had jumped the polesitting #17 Genesis of Andre Lotterer - to take the lead in the #8 Toyota.
The race had to be neutralised before the first lap was even completed, with the #35 Alpine A424 and the #78 ASP Lexus RC F GT3 stopping on track after getting caught up in separate incidents.
Race start
Photo by: FIA WEC / DPPI
Shortly after the restart, the safety car had to be deployed again, after Harry Tincknell beached the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie in the gravel at Turn 5. All Hypercar entrants with the exception of the #20 BMW elected to pit under the virtual safety car, taking the opportunity to top-up fuel on a track as the rain intensified.
The race finally resumed with nine minutes remaining in the first hour, with Buemi comfortably leading in the #8 Toyota ahead of the out-of-sequence BMW of Rene Rast and the fast-starting #50 Ferrari of Miguel Molina.
Meanwhile, de Vries was making significant in-roads aboard the #7 Toyota, having already jumped from ninth to fourth at the first restart. The Le Mans 24 Hours winner gained a place when Rast pitted and then made light work of Molina, establishing 1-2 for Toyota behind Buemi before the end of the first hour.
Over the remainder of the stint, de Vries appeared to be the quicker of the two Toyotas, with the Dutchman rapidly closing in on Buemi and even coming close to making a move. But with the latter carrying a five-second penalty for a start infringement, de Vries elected to stay behind his squadmate.
It was not until three-quarters into the second hour that the Hypercar drivers made their first full-service pitstops, with the two early safety car periods allowing them to run longer on fuel. By this stage the track had also dried out significantly, allowing drivers to make the switch to slick tyres.
The #8 Toyota was the first of the frontrunners to come into the pits and duly served its penalty, with Hartley dropping to second after taking over from Buemi. But the undercut allowed Hartley to undo the time loss, and he had no trouble repassing the #7 Toyota now driven by de Vries’ team-mate Conway.
Once in front, Hartley pulled out a lead of over 14 seconds in an impressive stint, handing the championship-leading #8 Toyota a decisive advantage at the halfway point of the race.
#7 Toyota Gazoo Racing Toyota TR010: Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck De Vries
Photo by: FIA WEC / DPPI
The race was reset again with two hours left on the clock, when Zacharie Robichon got caught out by water seeping up through the kerbs and got stuck in the gravel at Turn 7.
This wiped out the gap between the two Toyotas, but Hirakawa again pulled away at the front in the #8 TR010 Hybrid, with both Kobayashi and de Vries unable to put up a sustained challenge in the #7 car as a late threat of rain failed to materialise.
The final margin between the two cars was 0.6s, as Hirakawa, Buemi and Hartley clinched their second consecutive win to strengthen their bid for the drivers’ title.
Ferrari emerged as Toyota’s closest rival at Barcelona, with Molina, Nicklas Nielsen and Antonio Fuoco finishing third in the #50 499P, albeit over half a minute down on the race winner.
AF Corse’s satellite Ferrari shared by Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson also enjoyed a strong run, but was leapfrogged by the #38 Jota Cadillac V-Series.R of Sebastien Bourdais, Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber in the final round of pitstops. Kubica hunted down Aitken in the final stint, but the newly-crowned IMSA GTP champion hung on to fourth place by less than a second.
The sister #12 Cadillac of Will Stevens, Norman Nato and the returning Alex Lynn finished sixth after recovery from a 10s penalty Stevens picked up for hitting Ferdinand Habsburg’s #35 Alpine at the start.
It was a mixed day for BMW at Barcelona following a tough qualifying session that left its two LMDh prototypes 14th and 16th on the grid. Dries Vanthoor, Raffaele Marciello and Kevin Magnussen showed solid pace in the #15 M Hybrid V8 to charge to seventh place. That was despite Magnussen picking up a 10s penalty for causing a collision with the #38 Cadillac of Sebastien Bourdais.
#20 BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8: Rene Rast, Robin Frijns, Sheldon Van der Linde
Photo by: Paul Foster
However, the title-contending #20 BMW endured a fraught day, with a decision not to pit under the second safety car back firing when Rast was shown a black-and-orange flag for low tyre pressures. Rast had to pit under green flag condition and was later handed a 20s penalty for the offence, leaving him, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde a lap down on the leaders. The result marked their third non-points finish of the year and eliminated any mathematical chance of winning the drivers' title.
Alpine finished eighth and 10th in Hypercar, separated by the sole-surviving Aston Martin Valkyrie of Marco Sorensen and Alex Riberas.
Victor Martins had to make an unscheduled pitstop with 20 minutes remaining due to a suspected puncture, but passed Sorensen on the penultimate lap to grab eighth in the #36 A424 he shares with Jules Gounon. Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg finished 10th in the sister #35 car.
After starring in Saturday’s qualifying, Genesis’ race came undone in the first hour. Lotterer dropped from first to eighth in the early stages with traction control issues, before a drive-through penalty for an FCY infringement left him, Mathys Jaubert and Pipo Derani out of the points.
Juncadella took advantage of the safety car to bounce back from his mistake on lap 1, but he, Paul-Loup Chatin and Mathieu Jaminet eventually slipped down the order, just missing out on points in 11th.
Peugeot appeared strong in damp conditions in the first two hours, with Paul di Resta rising from last to sixth on merit in the #93 9X8. But the French manufacturer slipped back as the track dried out, with its two cars eventually finishing outside the points in 12th and 13th.
LMGT3: Porsche wins as Corvette closes in on title
#92 The Bend Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R: Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera, Richard Lietz
Photo by: Jakob Ebrey
Manthey claimed its first LMGT3 victory of the 2026 season in Barcelona, with Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz triumphing in the #92 Porsche 911 GT3 R.
While the team’s second entry was heavily damaged in the opening lap melee, the #92 Porsche enjoyed a clean race, leading for nearly the entire duration in unprecedented fashion.
Bronze-rated Shahin took the wheel of the car in the first stint and immediately passed the polesitting #10 Garage 59 McLaren of Antares Au to take the lead. Pera then pulled away to the tune of 20 seconds by the midpoint of the race, before factory Porsche driver Lietz brought the car home in the final stint.
While the #92 Porsche’s victory was never in doubt, the fight for second place went down to the wire. Marvin Kirchhofer passed Dan Harper in the closing stages to secure the runner-up spot in the polesitter #10 McLaren he shared with Au and Tom Fleming.
Harper, Anthony McIntosh and Parker Thompson nevertheless completed a strong recovery from 15th on the grid to finish third aboard WRT’s #69 BMW M4 GT3,.
The championship-leading #33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 GT.3R of Jonny Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating finished seventh, delaying Edgar’s title coronation until Monza.
Silver-rated Edgar, the only driver to have taken part in all races in the #33 Corvette, holds an 18-point lead over the #92 Porsche crew, with a maximum of 26 on offer in the Monza finale.
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