Toyota’s century: Taking stock of another Hypercar milestone at Imola

100 races, 50 wins in the WEC for Toyota is a dream headline for the Japanese brand, which looked back to its best at Imola this weekend in front of a record crowd of more than 92,000 fans. Sometimes, post-race stories write themselves.

Much has been written about the 2025 campaign for the team in the final year for the GR010; needless to say, it was hugely disappointing. But in 2026, after the extended off-season, Toyota has come out ready to fight, looking poised to reclaim not only the world championships Ferrari snatched last year, but to win Le Mans again too. The overhauled aero package on its newly named TR010, appears to work as advertised, and strategically, the team looked revitalized, as on point as it had been in years.

According to race winner Sebastien Buemi, who brought the car home after Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley’s efforts, it was down to hard graft and a focus on looking inward in the winter. It was a performance reminiscent of some of the team’s previous high points.

“It reminded me of 2016, after a very bad 2015,” the Swiss, who now has 27 WEC wins on his resume, explained post-race. “We reacted, and the car was very competitive. The team has stepped up since last year. The car looks different, but we have improved our organization and I’m very proud of the team. It’s not easy when you’re down to turn things around and win.”

David Floury, the team’s technical director, agrees that today’s result was a reflection of its efforts to reset and move forward: “We were not happy with some of our races last year; it was not the way we wanted to race," he said.

“We worked together collectively. We had no turnover in the team. It wasn’t a matter of hiring new people with experience from elsewhere. It was about working together as a group, reflecting on what we did wrong, and getting it sorted. We pushed very hard.

“And the new car, I think, is definitely an improvement – not on pace, but in consistency and how user-friendly it is.”

Strategy, execution and good fortune all worked together for Toyota on Sunday. James Moy Photography/Getty Images

There was, of course, a dash of luck involved. The timing of the second safety car allowed the No. 8 crew to change tires and get in sync with the pole-sitting No. 51 crew, having snatched the track position a handful of laps earlier by opting to triple-stint its Michelin tires. But sometimes in racing, you need a bit of fortune to get you over the line, and on this occasion, both its cars were quick enough to frustrate Ferrari’s lead car once they were in front with older rubber.

“It was a race mostly about strategy and strong execution,” Floury explained. “We know it’s hard to overtake, so we tried various calls to do the undercut. We didn’t start the weekend where we ended it; as a whole team, we made constant progress, and at the end of the day, we didn’t have the fastest car, we just didn’t make mistakes and got our elbows out.”

What’s clear is that we’ve got a battle on our hands in Hypercar. Right now, it looks like Ferrari vs Toyota is firmly back on in Porsche's absence. But even more encouragingly, the majority of the field looked pretty close together in terms of performance in the opener. Hyperpole was the tightest it’s ever been, top to bottom, and in the race, the best that Alpine, BMW and (to a lesser extent) Cadillac had to offer wasn’t a million miles away.

The Hypercar field looked promisingly balanced as the new season began. Jakob Ebrey/Getty Images

With so much discourse through the season’s opening week in the wake of the FIA and ACO’s controversial decision to keep all BoP data private for the first time, it was refreshing to watch a hard-fought race at the end of it. It was equally promising that the post-race mixed zone was largely void of angry competitors. No controversy or narrative detracted from what was a historic, hard-earned result for Toyota – a brand that, lest we forget, has long gone above and beyond to keep the WEC interesting and healthy.

Toyota deserves huge praise for its loyalty and faith in the WEC as a platform. It’s been present since the inaugural season, racking up 42 poles, 111 podiums, 13 titles and five Le Mans wins in addition to its 50 overall wins. So few factory teams in any area of the sport have had such staying power and such a commitment to excellence.

“Toyota work hard when it’s difficult,” commented Buemi. “The program could have been stopped many times when things didn’t go our way. But we are still here, we have such a strong team, and I’m proud to be part of it.”

“I couldn’t imagine that our program would continue for such a long time,” Toyota driver turned vice chairman, Kazuki Nakajima, added earlier in the week in conversation with RACER. “I think the team has developed and grown up quite a lot, not only size-wise, but experience-wise. I think we have gained a lot of experience.

“Importantly, we have many guys who have been with us since the start. I think it’s quite meaningful as a team to have consistency and gain experience together with some fresh faces. We feel like we have a good mixture of freshness and experience.

“Of course, we have gone through many difficult moments, starting with the first race. For a few years, we always somehow struggled to win at Le Mans, but I think all that experience helped us to grow up, and then winning five times in a row is, I think, proof that we have grown up.

“Since 2023, when we started having many more rivals in WEC, we’ve had good moments and tough moments,” Nakajima reflected. “We have been missing the win at Le Mans since 2022, so I think we are really eager to get this victory back with us, and obviously, this is our biggest target this year.”

On the other side of the coin in all this is Ferrari. Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi were left disappointed with second, though less aggrieved than their teammates in the No. 50, who ended up sixth after a costly drive-through. But there are still plenty of positives to take from their home weekend, not least a healthy haul of points to kick off their title defense.

“We can still be satisfied with the result. We got a lot of points for the championship,” Pier Guidi told RACER. “We wanted to win in front of the fans – maybe we just missed luck. They got the jump on us, and when we had an advantage on tires, they were in front and it was impossible to overtake, even with a bit more pace.

“Of course, last year when we won was much better, and we wanted to put on a show for our fans, who were screaming for us. But the level of this championship is so high that this is normal; sometimes we win, sometimes we lose. And Toyota brings a new car now; they finished 1-2 in Bahrain last year, and now they bring a new car, and I wouldn’t expect it to be slower. It’s part of the game, and our car is still strong. It’s going to be a big year.”