Drivers · 4 min read · 611 words

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.

The top of the list

Buemi made his WEC debut for Toyota at the 2012 24 Hours of Le Mans, took his first win at Bahrain in 2013 and is still racing for Toyota in the Hypercar era. He has won Le Mans 4 times: three in a row in the LMP1-Hybrid era, in 2018 and 2019 with Nakajima and Fernando Alonso and in 2020 with Nakajima and Hartley, then in 2022 in the Hypercar class with Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa.

Hartley's 26 wins span a Porsche LMP1 spell (2014 to 2017) and the longer Toyota run that began in 2019-20. He has won overall with two manufacturers, and with Porsche he won the 2015 and 2017 drivers' titles and the 2017 manufacturers' title before moving across.

Conway, Kobayashi and Jose Maria Lopez, who has 15, formed the No. 7 Toyota crew from 2017 to the end of 2023. Their wins include the 2021 24 Hours of Le Mans, the first Le Mans of the Hypercar class. Conway and Kobayashi won Le Mans again in 2026 with Nyck de Vries.

How the record was built

Toyota's 2018-2019 super season had eight races and the works No. 8 won five of them. Buemi's wins are spread across the years rather than concentrated in one peak: he won at least one race in every season from 2013 to 2026 except 2015, 2016 and 2025.

Outside Toyota, the biggest totals belong to the Audi and Porsche LMP1 drivers: Andre Lotterer has 12 and Timo Bernhard 12. Lotterer, who started his WEC career with Audi and won with Porsche Penske Motorsport in 2024, races for Genesis in 2026.

The Hypercar era

The Hypercar era has spread the wins more widely than the late LMP1 seasons, when Toyota was the only works team. The Ferrari 499P won three consecutive 24 Hours of Le Mans from 2023 to 2025, and put Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, Nicklas Nielsen, Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi on the overall win list. Fuoco has 3 overall wins and Pier Guidi 3.

Eight manufacturers raced in the Hypercar class in 2025, and 5 of them won at least one race that year.

Who could catch the record

Buemi, on 29, is still on the WEC grid, racing for Toyota Racing in the No. 8 TR010 Hybrid. Hartley, on 26, shares that car, so a win for one is a win for the other while the crew stays together. The No. 7 Toyota pair of Conway and Kobayashi have 20 and 19.

Last updated · buemi · hartley · conway · kobayashi · nakajima · toyota

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Related questions

Drivers

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.

Regulations

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

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.