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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.
The 12 Hours of Sebring, 2012
The WEC's first race was run as part of the 12 Hours of Sebring, shared with the American Le Mans Series. The No. 2 Audi Sport Team Joest R18 of Allan McNish, Dindo Capello and Tom Kristensen won. It remains the only 12-hour race in the archive.
The Qatar 1812km
The archive holds 2 WEC races at Lusail, both run over the 1812 km format. In 2024 the No. 6 Porsche Penske Motorsport 963 won after 335 laps, the most laps of any race outside Le Mans in the archive up to 2026. In 2025 the No. 50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P won after 318 laps. The winners' lap times add up to just under ten hours in 2024 and just over ten hours in 2025.
The 2026 Qatar round was postponed and then cancelled. The race is on the 2027 calendar as the season opener.
The eight-hour races
Bahrain has held seven eight-hour WEC races: in December 2019, November 2020 and every season from 2021 to 2025. In 2021 it ran a six-hour race and an eight-hour race on consecutive weekends. Toyota won all seven eight-hour Bahrain races from 2019 to 2025, and has 11 Bahrain wins in all, counting the earlier six-hour races. The 2026 Bahrain round was cancelled, and the 8 Hours of Bahrain is on the 2027 calendar as the finale.
Portimão held one eight-hour race, in 2021, won by the No. 8 Toyota after 300 laps. Its second WEC race, in 2023, was a six-hour race.
The 1000 Miles of Sebring
The 1000 Miles of Sebring was held three times, in 2019, 2022 and 2023, with an eight-hour time limit. In 2019 and 2023 the winners' lap times add up to eight hours, short of the full 1,000 miles. The round planned for March 2020 was not run because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
The three runnings had two different winning manufacturers:
- 2019: the No. 8 Toyota TS050 Hybrid of Fernando Alonso, Sébastien Buemi and Kazuki Nakajima - 2022: the No. 36 Alpine A480 of André Negrão, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxivière - 2023: the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López
Counting the 2012 race, the archive holds 4 WEC races at Sebring: Toyota has won 2, Audi 1 and Alpine 1. Sebring has not been on the calendar since 2023.
Everything else
The rest of the archive is six-hour races, plus two four-hour races at Silverstone and Shanghai in the 2019-20 season. Spa, Fuji, Imola, São Paulo, the Circuit of the Americas and the other regular venues run six hours, and both replacement rounds added to the 2026 calendar, Barcelona and Monza, are six-hour races. A longer race also pays more championship points, as explained in the WEC scoring guide, with Le Mans paying the most.
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