Why Buemi embodies the FIA WEC's 100-race journey

It feels apt that the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 100th race will take place this weekend on Toyota’s home soil at the Fuji Speedway. No manufacturer has been more committed to the series than the Japanese marque, which has stood alone as the only brand to compete in the top class every year since the WEC’s inception, backing the FIA and ACO’s ambitious project through every twist and turn.

At the heart of Toyota’s journey is Sébastien Buemi. The 36-year-old Swiss holds the record for the most WEC starts in history – 91 and counting – all with the same team. His career trajectory aligned perfectly with the championship’s birth, offering him a seamless transition into endurance racing following his three-season stint in Formula 1 with Toro Rosso.

Buemi admits the WEC made sportscar racing more accessible than it had ever seemed to him before.

“I was teammates with Sébastien Bourdais in F1, and he was doing races for Peugeot at the same time,” he recalls. “I couldn’t understand it – drivers coming in and out for the big events. I liked the idea of a proper championship. The World Championship was extremely important. At the beginning it didn’t look promising, especially when Peugeot pulled out before it started, but Toyota’s arrival was vital.”

Since then, Buemi’s record speaks for itself: 26 race wins, four world titles, and four Le Mans triumphs. His highlight reel includes his maiden Le Mans victory in 2018, his stirring drive in Bahrain last season to secure Toyota the manufacturers’ crown, and of course the heartbreak of 2016, when his teammate Kazuki Nakajima stopped on the final lap while leading.

Even during the years when Toyota had no major rivals – after Audi and Porsche withdrew from LMP1 – Buemi insists the challenge remained intense.

“As a driver, I was always motivated,” he says. “What I didn’t enjoy was fighting only the sister car. Against another manufacturer, it feels like going to war together as a team. Fighting internally is harder to judge – what’s fair, where the boundaries are. In some ways, those battles were more difficult. We took big risks, even though we knew a Toyota was likely to win, and that increased the chance of both cars retiring.”

Pressed for a single standout memory, Buemi immediately goes back to his debut with Toyota at Le Mans in 2012.

“I remember the first tests at Paul Ricard and Aragon. I called my dad and said, ‘We’ll never make it; it’s impossible.’ The car broke down every 10 minutes. We couldn’t understand how Audi managed 24 hours. But we were quick. In the race, Anthony [Davidson] crashed, and we wouldn’t have finished anyway, but just getting six hours felt like an achievement. I saw light at the end of the tunnel. Then the team won its first race, and that changed everything. By the second year, we were on the podium at Le Mans.”

Both the championship and Toyota have evolved since those early years. Buemi has witnessed the team adapt from running a single entry outside of Le Mans to a full two-car program, battling Audi and Porsche at the height of LMP1 before transitioning to today’s fiercely competitive Hypercar era.

“The professionalism is completely different now,” he reflects. “With more manufacturers and BoP, the smallest details matter. In the past, unsafe releases or track limits were barely noticed, and contact wasn’t always penalized. It’s all part of the championship growing. As a team, we’ve changed too. At the beginning, the commitment wasn’t fully there. Only in 2014 did we expand to two cars everywhere. We’ve built gradually, which I prefer to a brand that comes in all-in and disappears quickly.”

With two races left in 2025, Toyota finds itself in an unusual position: out of title contention, chasing only a race win. A year has passed since the GR010 last took the checkered flag first – a drought unthinkable for a team of its stature.

This weekend, though, offers the perfect stage to put things right: a centenary race for the WEC, on home ground, with Toyota determined to return to winning ways in front of its own fans.