Kamui Kobayashi's WEC decade, by the numbers

Kamui Kobayashi made his WEC race debut at Silverstone in April 2013, in the No. 71 Ferrari 458 Italia of AF Corse in the GTE Pro class, and finished second in class. He has raced for Toyota in every season since 2016, in the No. 7 since 2017, now under the Toyota Racing name, and since 2022 he has also been the team's principal. His record so far: 19 overall race wins, 45 podiums, 18 pole positions, 2 Le Mans 24 Hours wins, and the fastest qualifying lap in Le Mans history, plus 25 race fastest laps credited to his car.

This is the year-by-year breakdown of that record, the Le Mans races that shaped it, and what has changed since the driver also became the team principal.

The headline totals

Across 83 WEC race starts from 2013 to the 2026 Barcelona round, counting the races held in the archive:

The Le Mans figures cover the races held in the archive, which does not yet include the 2016 race he started for Toyota. Up to 2026, his archive record at La Sarthe reads two wins (2021 and 2026), four second places (2018, 2019, 2022 and 2024) and a third in 2020, against retirements with the No. 7 in 2017 and 2023, fifth place in 2025 and fifth in GTE Pro on his 2013 debut.

WEC Engine's pole rule uses the last qualifying session of each event. At Le Mans in 2017 the sister No. 8 topped that session, so the 2017 pole is credited to the No. 8 and is not part of Kobayashi's 18, even though his 3:14.791, set in an earlier session, was the fastest lap of qualifying.

Per-season ledger, 2013 to 2026

Kobayashi raced in Formula 1 in 2014 and did not contest the WEC in 2014 or 2015. He returned with Toyota for 2016 and has not missed a season since. Fastest laps in the table are those credited to his car.

Up to the end of 2025, his best seasons for wins were 2019-20 and 2023, with four each. The 2019-20 super season, which included two Le Mans races in one season, was also his best for podiums, with a top-three finish in all eight rounds. In the Hypercar seasons from 2021 to 2025 he scored between one and six podiums a year.

The 2017 Le Mans qualifying lap

In qualifying for the 2017 Le Mans, Kobayashi lapped the Circuit de la Sarthe in 3:14.791 in the No. 7 Toyota TS050 Hybrid. No other car's best qualifying lap that year was within two seconds of it; the next best was the sister No. 8's 3:17.128. It remains the fastest qualifying lap in the race's history.

Our Le Mans Hypercar lap record story tracks the year-by-year Hypercar best alongside this number. Up to the 2026 race, the fastest Hypercar qualifying lap in the archive was 3:22.564, by the No. 15 BMW in 2026, 7.773 seconds slower than the 2017 lap.

The 2017 race went the other way. The No. 7 led into the night but retired with a clutch failure after 154 laps, and the race was won by the No. 2 Porsche.

The 2021 Le Mans win

Kobayashi's first Le Mans win came at his seventh start in the race, counting his 2013 GTE debut and the 2016 race that the archive does not yet hold. In the three races before it, the No. 7 finished second in 2018 and 2019 and third in 2020. In 2021, the first Le Mans for the Hypercar class, the No. 7 GR010 Hybrid of Conway, Kobayashi and Lopez won by two laps from the sister No. 8 of Buemi, Hartley and Nakajima.

In 2022 the sister No. 8 won and the No. 7 finished second. The No. 7 was credited with the race fastest lap, set by Lopez. Kobayashi's second Le Mans win came in 2026, with Conway and Nyck de Vries.

2023 and 2024 at Le Mans

2023: the No. 7 retired after 103 laps and is listed 51st overall. Ferrari's No. 51 499P won, the marque's first overall Le Mans win since 1965.

2024: the No. 7 set no qualifying time and started 23rd. The sister No. 8 started 11th. The No. 7 recovered to finish second, 14.2 seconds behind the winning No. 50 Ferrari.

Across the Hypercar era, up to the 2026 Fuji round, the No. 7 had taken 10 poles to the sister No. 8's 6, while at Le Mans the No. 7 had won twice (2021 and 2026) to the No. 8's four (2018, 2019, 2020 and 2022).

Driver and team principal, since 2022

Toyota made Kobayashi principal of its WEC team from 2022, and he kept driving the No. 7. Kazuki Nakajima, who won Le Mans 3 times and stopped racing after 2021, became vice-chairman of Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe.

His results since 2022 sit within the range of his earlier Toyota seasons: wins per season of 2, 4, 1 and 1 and poles of 1, 3, 1 and 1 from 2022 to 2025, against 0 to 4 wins and 0 to 4 poles a season from 2016 to 2021. His regular No. 7 team-mates were Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez in 2022 and 2023, then Conway and Nyck de Vries from 2024. Whether the dual role costs lap time or stint management is not something a results database can show.

The long Toyota run

Kobayashi has raced for Toyota in every season from 2016 to 2026 and started every race in the archive in that period, up to the 2026 Fuji round. He has driven the TS050 Hybrid, the GR010 Hybrid and its 2026 TR010 update, and raced under two team names, Toyota Gazoo Racing and, from 2026, Toyota Racing.

His career win count, 19, compares with 29 for Sébastien Buemi, 26 for Brendon Hartley and 20 for Mike Conway, the other Toyota-era leaders, and with 15 for Lopez and 12 for André Lotterer. On race fastest laps credited to the car, the all-time list is headed by Kamui Kobayashi with 25.