WEC Season Preview: Toyota

Toyota’s 2026 WEC challenger, featuring new bodywork and livery | Credit: Toyota Racing

A 2025 to forget

A lacklustre 2025 season. Not the phrase you would normally associate with the multiple championship-winning manufacturer Toyota. Through an operational and technical reset, it seeks to return to its winning ways in its 2026 World Endurance Championship (WEC) campaign.

Yes, while a team’s reign of dominance doesn't last forever in motorsport, having to suffer an entire 2025 season without ever stepping onto the rostrum except the final round at Bahrain - albeit 1-2 finish - was certainly a disappointing outcome to a team like Toyota Racing.

The first three rounds saw Toyota keep the ship afloat in top ten spots, though it definitely wasn’t the standard the team aimed for. 

Heading to Le Mans, where it would usually make itself known to the whole endurance world as indomitable, boasting the most consecutive Le Mans wins in the modern WEC era. Despite receiving yet another detrimental Balance of Performance (BoP) adjustments, Toyota vowed to make the best out of it.

However, a broken component caused front-left wheel failure, plus being unable to match the pace of its rivals, forced it to finish in sixth and 16th, its worst Le Mans result since 2017 (a race where LMP2 cars finished second and third overall).

Toyota struggled to find the pace post-Le Mans, as it found it difficult to break into the top five for the second half of the season, as a result of occasional technical and strategic errors made along the way. 

For instance, its disastrous home race in Fuji, where ill luck, collisions and stop-go penalties further stained its progress approaching the finale.  

The team has been open about the decline in performance, arguably heavily impacted by the Balance of Performance (BoP), an element that Toyota’s Technical Director, David Floury, had also been critical about throughout the year. 

Despite being equipped with a remarkable set of driver crew and technical package, Toyota’s unfavourable power-to-weight ratio affected its raceability of the GR010s, making it harder to compete with the rest of the Hypercar grid.

In addition to this, it had to witness their winning streaks being broken by their current rival Ferrari, who secured both Hypercar Drivers’ and Manufacturers’ championships. 

Despite its first title-less season since 2017, its Bahrain result did elevate Toyota two places up to second in the Manufacturer’s standings. Hoping to continue this momentum from Bahrain, Toyota did the inner (and outer) work and revamped the technical and operational side.

New beginnings through outer workings

Since WEC’s conception in 2012, the Japanese marque has established itself as the series’ top class benchmark, conquering championship titles and Le Mans wins, before eventually being surpassed by the more ferocious rivals in the likes of Ferrari, Cadillac and Porsche. 

As the season-opener at Imola will mark Toyota’s 100th WEC race (they missed the first two rounds in 2012), a complete turnaround has become more crucial than ever for the veteran manufacturer.

That even includes securing race victories, especially at Le Mans, one of Toyota’s biggest focuses.

Floury added: “When you go racing, it’s a great thing to have a car that looks good and looks like it’s really representing the brand.

“But at the end of the day, why we go racing is to win races, championships, and obviously Le Mans is a big target.

“Le Mans is probably the most challenging race in terms of endurance racing for circuit racing, and it is also now a very competitive environment. It’s a challenge, but we are up for the challenge, and we are aiming to achieve this.”

With the use of an Evo Joker, the upgrades on the team’s 2026 challenger were definitely more than a mere switch in the components. Adjustments were made on their engine covers, rear wing, front end and side pods, reflecting its seriousness in the renewal. 

Though the car’s development had been going on for more than a year and not being a response to the team’s decline, minor updates were done to the revamped models to ensure it meets all the requirements, including reliability.

“We have made some small updates which are more linked to reliability than anything else,” Floury said. 

“We had a couple of small things last year, the biggest one being losing a wheel at Le Mans. These points we need to address. 

With the very competitive environment of WEC nowadays, if you want to win races and championships, you need to be perfect in all aspects.”

With a couple of high expectations and two revamped cars, one could hope that these will reward Toyota redemption through award-winning consistency they desired for come 2026.

Stability from within 

Credit: Toyota Racing

Amidst radical changes to the car and the removal of ‘Gazoo’ in its revised brand name, there’s one element of the package that Toyota let remain constant. 

Looking at how well the team dynamics were showcased both on and off track, Toyota retained both of its driver line-ups on the newly named TR010s.

The No.7 car of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries will compete alongside each other for the third year, while the No.8 trio of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa will be entering its fifth season together.

De Vries commented on working again with the rest of the No.7 crew ahead of Imola : “I’m excited to start my third season with Kamui and Mike in the No.7 car. We know each other well, and we are part of a strong team which is working hard to constantly improve.

“Testing has been productive, and I feel like we are well prepared, but we’ll only discover where we are at Imola. Against strong competition, we know we need a well-executed race week to fight at the front. We’ve shown we can do that and I’m looking forward to the challenge.”

Bouncing back from a winless drought of a season while being surrounded by increasingly intense competition comes with a lot of pressure. 

Overcoming that requires high levels of motivation. Fostering that collaborative environment among familiar faces brings out the best in the team to push further.

It’s only a matter of time before the Manufacturer’s Championship will be within Toyota’s grasp once again.