WEC Engine
Answers
Long-form answers to the most-searched questions about the FIA World Endurance Championship. Every answer pulls from the same archive that powers the rest of WEC Engine: every event, session, lap, stint and standings snapshot from 2012 to today.
7 answers
Drivers
Records, careers, championship runs, and the stats nobody else has tracked.
Drivers · 4 min read
Who is Sebastien Buemi?
Sébastien Buemi is a Swiss racing driver who has raced for Toyota in the WEC since 2012 and won the Formula E title in 2015-16. He has 29 overall WEC race wins and 4 24 Hours of Le Mans wins, three of them in a row from 2018 to 2020. He won WEC drivers' world titles in 2014, 2018-19, 2022 and 2023, and in 2026 he still races the No. 8 Toyota.
Drivers · 5 min read
Who is Kamui Kobayashi?
Kamui Kobayashi is a Japanese racing driver who has raced for Toyota in the WEC since 2016 and has also been the team principal of its WEC team since 2022. He has 19 overall WEC wins, 18 poles and 2 24 Hours of Le Mans wins, the first in 2021. In 2017 he set a 3:14.791 in Le Mans qualifying, the fastest qualifying lap in the race's history. In 2026 he still drives the No. 7 Toyota, the car he has raced since 2017.
Drivers · 3 min read
Who has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the Hypercar era?
Two manufacturers have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans since the Hypercar class arrived in 2021. Toyota won in 2021, 2022 and 2026, and Ferrari won three in a row from 2023 to 2025 with the 499P. Through the 2026 race, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi are the only drivers to have won it twice in the Hypercar era.
Drivers · 4 min read
Who has the most WEC race fastest laps?
Kamui Kobayashi has the most WEC race fastest laps, with 25. That count credits each race fastest lap to every driver who drove the car that set it, the rule used on WEC Engine's driver pages. Counting only the laps a driver set personally, the leader is Sébastien Buemi with 12.
Drivers · 4 min read
Which driver has the most WEC overall race wins?
Sébastien Buemi has the most overall WEC race wins, with 29 victories. Buemi has 29, his long-time Toyota team-mate Brendon Hartley 26, Mike Conway 20 and Kamui Kobayashi 19. Buemi, Hartley, Conway, Kobayashi and the retired Kazuki Nakajima, who has 17, all drove for Toyota in the LMP1-Hybrid era.
Drivers · 4 min read
Which driver has started the most WEC races?
Richard Lietz and Sébastien Buemi share the record for WEC race starts, with 97. WEC Engine counts a start only when the driver completed at least one racing lap. Sébastien Buemi has 97 starts and Richard Lietz 97; Mike Conway has 91 and James Calado 89.
Drivers · 4 min read
Which driver has the most WEC pole positions?
The all-time WEC pole list is headed by Kamui Kobayashi on 18 overall poles and Mike Conway on 18. Kobayashi and Conway built their totals together in the No. 7 Toyota. Jose Maria Lopez has 16, Brendon Hartley 14 and Sebastien Buemi 11.
10 answers
Manufacturers
Factory programmes, marque histories, and the long arc of competition.
Manufacturers · 5 min read
Why did Audi leave the WEC?
Audi ended its LMP1-Hybrid programme at the end of the 2016 WEC season, citing budget reallocation following the Volkswagen Group's 2015 diesel-emissions investigation. The decision closed a 17-year top-class endurance racing programme that had produced 13 24 Hours of Le Mans wins, 17 WEC overall race wins and the most consistent LMP1 manufacturer effort in motorsport history. Audi has not returned to top-class endurance racing since, although the marque had announced a Formula 1 entry for 2026 with Sauber.
Manufacturers · 5 min read
Which teams race in the WEC Hypercar class in 2026?
Nine teams run 17 full-season Hypercars in the 2026 WEC, representing eight manufacturers: Toyota, Ferrari, BMW, Cadillac, Alpine, Aston Martin, Peugeot and newcomer Genesis. Ferrari fields three cars across two teams, and every other manufacturer two. All 17 cars started each of the first six rounds, from Imola to Fuji, and Cadillac added an 18th car at Le Mans. Porsche, which raced 963s in every 2025 round, has no Hypercar entry.
Manufacturers · 5 min read
Which team has the most WEC wins?
Toyota Gazoo Racing heads the WEC team win list with 39 overall victories. Toyota's factory squad has 53 in all once its 14 wins as Toyota Racing, the name it used from 2012 to 2015 and again in 2026, are added to its Toyota Gazoo Racing total. Audi Sport Team Joest won 17, all between 2012 and 2016.
Manufacturers · 5 min read
Which manufacturers will join WEC in 2027?
Three new manufacturers are confirmed to join the WEC Hypercar grid by 2027. Genesis debuts in 2026 with an LMDh built by IDEC Sport and Oreca. Ford debuts in 2027 with the Mustang GTP LMDh, run by Multimatic. McLaren debuts in 2027 with a platform decision yet to be announced as of mid-2025. Each manufacturer's arrival has been confirmed through FIA homologation filings and public OEM announcements, and the 2027 Hypercar grid is on track to be the deepest top class the WEC has ever fielded.
Manufacturers · 3 min read
Which manufacturer has won the most Hypercar-era WEC races?
Toyota has won the most Hypercar-era WEC races, with 24 overall victories since the class arrived in 2021, counted up to the 2026 Barcelona round. Ferrari has 8 wins, Porsche 4, Alpine 3, BMW 2 and Cadillac 1.
Manufacturers · 4 min read
Which car has won the most WEC races?
The Toyota GR010 Hybrid has the most WEC overall wins, 24; the GR010 total includes its 2026 TR010 Hybrid update. The Toyota TS050 Hybrid won 19 races and the Porsche 919 Hybrid 16. Counting class wins, the Oreca 07 Gibson has the most, 44.
Manufacturers · 4 min read
What was the Toyota TS050 Hybrid era like?
The Toyota TS050 Hybrid raced in the WEC's LMP1 class from 2016 to 2020. It won 19 WEC races, including three consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans (2018, 2019 and 2020), and its crews won the drivers' world titles in 2018-19 and 2019-20. It is also the car of one of Le Mans' best-known late losses: in 2016 the leading TS050 stopped in the final minutes and Porsche won.
Manufacturers · 4 min read
What was the Porsche 919 Hybrid era?
The Porsche 919 Hybrid raced in the WEC's LMP1 class from 2014 to 2017. It won three consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans (2015, 2016 and 2017) and the manufacturers' and drivers' world titles in 2015, 2016 and 2017. The archive credits it with 16 WEC wins; the 2016 Le Mans, which a 919 also won, is not yet in the archive. Porsche left LMP1 at the end of 2017 to move into Formula E.
Manufacturers · 4 min read
What is the fastest LMDh car?
On raw lap time in our archive, the fastest LMDh car is the Cadillac V-Series.R: its 1:24.498 at Interlagos in 2025 is the quickest race lap any LMDh has set in the WEC, six hundredths ahead of the best from the Porsche 963. But the honest answer is that Balance of Performance keeps the LMDh field inside a window where "fastest" changes hands by circuit and by season, and the gap from best to fourth-best is under a second.
Manufacturers · 5 min read
Has Ferrari ever won Le Mans before 2023?
Yes. Ferrari won the 24 Hours of Le Mans nine times before its 2023 return, with overall victories in 1949, 1954, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1964 and 1965. The 1965 win, with Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt driving a NART-run Ferrari 250 LM, was the last overall Ferrari triumph at La Sarthe for 58 years. The marque then withdrew from outright Le Mans competition, returning only in 2023 with the 499P Hypercar.
8 answers
Regulations
How the rules work: BoP, LMH vs LMDh, Hyperpole, scoring, eras.
Regulations · 4 min read
Why are Hypercars slower than LMP1 cars?
Hypercars are roughly four to seven seconds per lap slower than the fastest LMP1 cars, and they are slower on purpose. The Hypercar rules cap power at about 520 kW, raise minimum weight to 1,030 kg, and use Balance of Performance to hold every car inside a target performance window. LMP1 had double the power-to-weight ambition and no BoP, and it nearly killed the championship: the class was down to one factory by 2018. The WEC traded outright speed for a grid.
Regulations · 4 min read
What replaced LMP1 in the WEC?
The Hypercar class replaced LMP1 as the WEC's top class for the 2021 season. The change ran in two stages: the LMP1-Hybrid era closed at the end of the 2019-2020 super-season, the 2020 Le Mans was the last LMP1 race of the WEC, and the Hypercar regulations went live at the start of the 2021 WEC season. Hypercar is a hybrid-mandatory class with two platform types under one performance window: LMH (manufacturer-built end to end) and LMDh (manufacturer engine and bodywork on a spec LMP2 chassis).
Regulations · 3 min read
What is the WEC Prologue?
The Prologue is the FIA WEC's official pre-season test: two days in which every full-season entry runs on the same track, usually the venue of the opening round, in the week before the season starts. It is mandatory for the field, open to spectators at most editions, and it is the first time each year that new cars, new liveries and new driver line-ups run in public with the timing screens on.
Regulations · 4 min read
What is the difference between LMH and LMDh?
LMH (Le Mans Hypercar) and LMDh (Le Mans Daytona h) are the two platform types that share the top class of the WEC, the Hypercar class. LMH cars are designed from scratch by their manufacturer, including the chassis, hybrid system and engine. LMDh cars are built around one of four spec LMP2 chassis (Dallara, Ligier, Multimatic, Oreca) with a manufacturer-developed engine bolted on top of a single mandated spec hybrid kit. Both platforms race each other through a system called Equivalence of Technology, designed to make them lap at the same pace.
Regulations · 4 min read
What is Hyperpole and how does it work?
Hyperpole is the WEC's top-shootout qualifying format. After a 12 to 15 minute open qualifying session in which every car runs, the fastest cars in each class transfer to a separate Hyperpole session and fight for pole position alone on track. At Le Mans, the top six cars from each class transfer. At all other WEC rounds since 2024, the top eight transfer in Hypercar and the top eight in LMGT3. The Hyperpole session itself is short, between 10 and 30 minutes depending on the round.
Regulations · 5 min read
What is Balance of Performance in WEC?
Balance of Performance, normally shortened to BoP, is the system the FIA and the ACO use to equalise lap times across the WEC's Hypercar and LMGT3 grids. Cars built to different technical specifications get adjustments to their minimum weight, maximum power, energy deployment per stint and aerodynamic windows, with the goal of making every entry in a class capable of the same race pace. BoP is reviewed before every event from public telemetry and lap data, and rebalances are published roughly two weeks before the round.
Regulations · 4 min read
How long is a WEC race?
Most WEC races last six hours. WEC Engine's archive holds 107 championship races; of the 106 it held after the 2026 Fuji round, 76 were scheduled as six-hour races. Le Mans runs for 24 hours, Bahrain and Portimão have hosted eight-hour races, Sebring has run a 12-hour race and the 1000 Miles, Qatar has run 1812 km, and two 2019 rounds lasted four hours. The 2027 calendar has five races billed as six hours, plus the Lone Star Le Mans in Texas, the Qatar 1812km, Le Mans and an eight-hour Bahrain.
Regulations · 5 min read
How does the WEC scoring system work?
The WEC awards points to every classified finisher in each class, with the 24 Hours of Le Mans paying double points and the 8-hour and 1812 km rounds paying 1.5 times the standard scale. A class winner at a 6-hour race earns 25 points, at an 8-hour race 38 and at Le Mans 50. Hyperpole adds one championship point to the pole-sitter in each class. Drivers, teams and manufacturers each have their own championship table calculated from the same per-race results.
6 answers
Circuits
La Sarthe, Spa, Fuji, and every other WEC venue: history and form.
Circuits · 5 min read
Why doesn't the WEC race at Silverstone anymore?
The WEC last raced at Silverstone in September 2019 and has not returned since. The 6 Hours of Silverstone hosted 8 WEC rounds between 2012 and 2019, making it the championship's longest-running British venue. The 2019 race produced one of the WEC's most controversial results when both Toyota TS050 Hybrids were stripped of their finishing positions in a post-race technical inspection, handing the win to a Rebellion Racing privateer that had finished a lap down. The fixture was dropped from the 2020 calendar and never reinstated.
Circuits · 4 min read
Why does the WEC race at Bahrain?
The WEC has raced at the Bahrain International Circuit every year since 2012, with the round serving as the championship's season finale since 2017. Bahrain offers three things no other WEC venue offers consistently: a desert-climate calendar slot in October or November when European tracks are weather-marginal, a high-spec circuit with built-in night-running infrastructure, and a Middle East commercial market the championship's sponsors value. The Bahrain round has produced more Hypercar manufacturer titles than any other single venue.
Circuits · 4 min read
Which circuit has hosted the most WEC events?
Spa-Francorchamps has hosted the most WEC races in WEC Engine's archive, with 15. Le Mans has 14 races in the archive, which leaves out the 2016 24 Hours, a WEC round that has not been ingested. Counting that race, Le Mans has hosted one more WEC race than the archive shows. Bahrain has 14, including two races in 2021, and Fuji 13. Spa and Le Mans are the only circuits that hosted a WEC race in every season from 2012 to 2026.
Circuits · 3 min read
What is the history of the 6 Hours of Spa?
The 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps has been on the WEC calendar in every season from 2012 to 2026, and WEC Engine's archive holds 15 WEC races at Spa. Toyota has won 8 of them, Audi 4, Porsche 1, Ferrari 1 and BMW 1. It is the traditional last round before Le Mans. BMW M Team WRT won in 2026 for BMW's first overall WEC win.
Circuits · 3 min read
What is the history of the 6 Hours of Fuji?
The 6 Hours of Fuji has been part of the WEC in every calendar year from 2012 to 2026 except 2020 and 2021, and WEC Engine's archive holds 13 WEC races at Fuji Speedway in Japan. Toyota, which owns the circuit, has won 10 of them. Porsche has 2 Fuji wins and Alpine 1.
Circuits · 3 min read
How long is the Le Mans circuit?
The Circuit de la Sarthe measures 13.626 kilometres, about 8.47 miles, which makes it by far the longest track in the FIA WEC and one of the longest active race circuits in the world. A Hypercar pole lap takes around three minutes and 23 seconds; the race winners cover the distance around 380 times in 24 hours, more than 5,000 kilometres of racing. Most of that length is public road, closed once a year for the race.
8 answers
Classes
Hypercar, LMP2, LMGT3, and the categories the WEC has run since 2012.
Classes · 4 min read
Why was LMP2 removed from the WEC?
LMP2 was dropped from the FIA WEC's full-season entry at the end of 2023 because the grid ran out of room. Hypercar manufacturer entries nearly doubled between 2022 and 2024, LMGT3 arrived as a new customer class, and the championship chose factories and GT brands over a customer prototype class that no longer fit. LMP2 was not killed: it still races in ELMS, in IMSA, and once a year at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where it remains an invited class.
Classes · 4 min read
Why does every LMP2 team race an Oreca 07?
Four constructors are licensed to build LMP2 cars: Oreca, Ligier, Dallara and Multimatic. In practice the grid chose one. The Oreca 07 proved faster and easier to run than its rivals when the ruleset launched in 2017, customer demand snowballed, and the other chassis disappeared from the WEC within five seasons. Since 2022, every LMP2 entry in the championship has been an Oreca 07 with the spec Gibson V8 behind the cockpit.
Classes · 5 min read
What is the difference between Hypercar and LMP2 in the WEC?
Hypercar and LMP2 are both prototype classes in the WEC, but they sit at different points on the cost and performance spectrum. Hypercar is the top class, manufacturer-led, hybrid-mandatory, and lap-time-balanced through Balance of Performance at around 3:25 around La Sarthe. LMP2 is the customer prototype class, a single chassis (Oreca 07) with a single engine (Gibson 4.2L V8), no hybrid, no BoP, lapping La Sarthe at around 3:30. LMP2 was removed from the WEC at the end of 2024 but remains the spec class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans through 2030.
Classes · 3 min read
What is the difference between Hypercar and LMGT3?
Hypercar and LMGT3 are the two classes of the modern FIA WEC, and they are different species of race car. Hypercars are purpose-built prototypes run by factory teams chasing outright victory. LMGT3 cars are production-derived GT3 machines run by customer teams with a mandatory amateur-rated driver in each crew. On 2025 qualifying pace the gap between them ran from 11 seconds a lap at short circuits to 30 seconds at Le Mans, which is why managing traffic between the classes is one of the WEC's defining skills.
Classes · 4 min read
What is LMGT3 and how does it differ from LMGTE Pro/Am?
LMGT3 is the WEC's production-derived GT class, introduced in 2024 to replace the LMGTE Pro and LMGTE Am categories. The cars are based on FIA GT3 homologations rather than the bespoke endurance-specific GTE rulebook, making them cheaper to build and broadly compatible with customer GT3 programmes outside the WEC. Each LMGT3 entry must run one platinum-rated or gold-rated driver alongside silver and bronze categorisations, preserving the customer-team character of the Am class while accepting works support.
Classes · 3 min read
What does LMDh stand for?
LMDh stands for Le Mans Daytona h, with the lowercase h officially left ambiguous but universally read as hybrid. The name was chosen in 2020 when the ACO, organiser of Le Mans, and IMSA, organiser of the Daytona 24, agreed on a common prototype platform that could race for outright victory in both. The clumsy capitalisation is the point: the category belongs to both races at once.
Classes · 4 min read
How fast is a WEC Hypercar compared to an F1 car?
A Formula 1 car is roughly 12 to 17 seconds per lap faster than a WEC Hypercar on the circuits they share. At Interlagos, the sharpest comparison in our data, the 2025 Hypercar pole was a 1:22.570 against an F1 qualifying record of 1:07.281: a gap of about 15 seconds on a 71-second lap. The reasons are weight, downforce and power-to-weight, and they are all deliberate. The two categories are built to answer different questions.
Classes · 3 min read
How fast do WEC Hypercars go?
A WEC Hypercar tops out around 350 km/h, and only at one place: Le Mans. Our timing data records a class-best 351.8 km/h at the 2026 24 Hours, up from 349.0 in 2025 and 344.5 in 2024. At every other circuit on the calendar the peaks are lower because the straights are shorter: around 320 km/h at Spa, less elsewhere. Cornering speed, not top speed, is where a Hypercar spends its performance budget.
9 answers
Events
Race-by-race, season-by-season: every running of every WEC round.
Events · 4 min read
Why did Le Mans drivers run to their cars at the start?
From 1925 to 1969, the 24 Hours of Le Mans began with drivers sprinting on foot across the track to their cars, jumping in, firing the engine and driving off. The "Le Mans start" was pure theatre and it became the race's signature image. It died because it was lethally unsafe in the seatbelt era, and its end is one of the sport's great protest stories: Jacky Ickx walked to his car in 1969, strapped in properly while the field drove away, and won the race anyway.
Events · 5 min read
Who has won WEC races in 2026?
Through the 2026 Barcelona round, 3 manufacturers have won the 7 WEC races of 2026 in WEC Engine's archive. Toyota has 4 wins, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans, BMW 2 and Ferrari 1. The calendar's last two rounds are six-hour races at Barcelona on 18 October and Monza on 8 November.
Events · 4 min read
Who has won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the WEC era?
Since the FIA WEC began in 2012, only four manufacturers have won the 24 Hours of Le Mans outright: Audi (2012 to 2014), Porsche (2015 to 2017), Toyota (2018 to 2022, plus 2026) and Ferrari (2023 to 2025). Fifteen editions from 2012 to 2026, four badges, and three distinct dynasties broken only by the swing years between eras. The full year-by-year list, with crews and race distance, is below.
Events · 4 min read
When does the 2027 WEC season start?
The 2027 WEC season starts with the Qatar 1812km at Lusail on 25-27 March 2027, after the official Prologue test at the same circuit on 21-22 March. It is the first of nine rounds, ending with the 8 Hours of Bahrain on 4-6 November. Qatar has opened the season twice before: Porsche won there in 2024 and Ferrari in 2025.
Events · 4 min read
What is the longest WEC race that isn't Le Mans?
The longest WEC race outside the 24 Hours of Le Mans was the championship's first race, the 12 Hours of Sebring in March 2012, where the winning No. 2 Audi covered 325 laps. Since then the longest format has been the Qatar 1812km, which opened the 2024 and 2025 seasons and took the winners about ten hours each time. Next come the eight-hour races: the 8 Hours of Bahrain, the 2021 8 Hours of Portimão and the 1000 Miles of Sebring. Almost every other WEC race has lasted six hours or less.
Events · 3 min read
What is the difference between Le Mans and Daytona?
Le Mans and Daytona are the two great 24-hour races, and they bookend the endurance season from opposite directions. The Rolex 24 at Daytona opens the year in late January on a 5.7 km banked road course inside a NASCAR superspeedway in Florida, sanctioned by IMSA. The 24 Hours of Le Mans anchors June on 13.6 km of French road, run by the ACO as the centrepiece of the FIA WEC. Same duration, different continents, different championships, and a different idea of what makes a race hard.
Events · 4 min read
What is the closest finish in WEC history?
The closest overall finish in WEC history came at the 2014 6 Hours of São Paulo, where the No. 14 Porsche 919 Hybrid beat the No. 8 Toyota TS040 Hybrid by 0.170 seconds after 249 laps. It was the 919's first WEC win. Up to the 2026 Fuji round, only two other races in WEC Engine's archive of 106 had finished with a margin under one second, most recently the 2026 6 Hours of Fuji itself at 0.591 seconds.
Events · 5 min read
What happened at the 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans?
The 2016 24 Hours of Le Mans produced one of motorsport's most-replayed late-race losses. The leading No. 5 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Anthony Davidson, Sebastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima suffered a power-system failure on the Mulsanne straight with three minutes to run, while leading by more than a lap. The car rolled to a stop at the pit-lane entry. The No. 2 Porsche 919 Hybrid, which had been more than a lap down, took the win. Nakajima rolled the dead Toyota across the finish line but the car was not classified.
Events · 4 min read
How many cars race in the 24 Hours of Le Mans?
62 cars started the 2026 24 Hours of Le Mans: 18 in Hypercar, 19 in LMP2 and 25 in LMGT3. Every Le Mans since 2022 has had 62 cars in the race results, and the ACO described the 2026 field as a full grid. In the WEC era the field has grown from 54 to 56 cars between 2012 and 2015 to 60 by 2017, then to the current 62.
3 answers
General
The wider questions: what is the WEC, who runs it, how it relates to Le Mans.
General · 3 min read
What is the difference between WEC and IMSA?
The FIA WEC is the world championship of endurance racing, run by the FIA and the ACO with the 24 Hours of Le Mans as its centerpiece. IMSA's WeatherTech SportsCar Championship is North America's top series, with the Daytona 24 and Sebring 12 as its crown jewels. They share car platforms, several manufacturers and a friendly rivalry, but they differ in classes, calendar, tyres and sporting rules. Since 2023 the same LMDh car can race in both, which is exactly what Porsche, Cadillac and BMW do.
General · 3 min read
What is the difference between WEC and ELMS?
The FIA WEC is the world championship: factory Hypercars, global calendar, Le Mans as its centrepiece. The European Le Mans Series is its continental sibling, run by the same ACO family but built around customer racing: four-hour races, all in Europe, topped by the LMP2 class rather than Hypercars. The two share DNA, teams and a crucial pipeline, because winning in ELMS is one of the established routes to an automatic invitation to the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
General · 4 min read
How many races are in a WEC season?
A WEC season usually has eight races. The 2026 calendar has eight rounds, with results for 7 of them in the archive so far, and the 2027 calendar grows to nine, the first nine-round season since 2017. From 2012 to the 2026 Barcelona round, WEC Engine's archive holds 107 completed races, with full-season totals ranging from six races in 2021 and 2022 to nine in 2016 and 2017.