LM24 Hour 24: Toyota reclaims Le Mans glory

10 years on from its heartbreaking last-gasp retirement from the lead after a titanic battle with Audi and Porsche, Toyota won the 2026 Le Mans 24 Hours in fine style, after another three-way showdown, this time with BMW and Cadillac.

The No. 7 TR010 HYBRID of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries delivered the landmark, emotional result. It's the brand's sixth win at the Le Mans 24 Hours, the first for its Hypercar badged as a TR010 and its first win since 2022, the year before the top class of the WEC exploded with the debut of the LMDh regulation set ahead of the centenary Le Mans in 2023.

Toyota’s triumph also meant that Ferrari’s win streak at Le Mans stopped at three, after a 24-hour sprint race in which the trio of 499Ps failed to feature in the fight for the podium spots.

The 94th edition of the French classic resembled the 93rd in many ways. It was a flat-out sprint with little interruption. Just two safety cars and a smattering of full course yellows and Slow Zones disrupted the action (last year’s race had only one safety car intervention). But again, that didn’t prevent a close finish, as the winning margin for the No. 7 crew was just 10.9s and the top seven cars all finished on the lead lap.

BMW Team WRT’s Spa-winning No. 20 M Hybrid of Sheldon van der Linde, Rene Rast and Robin Frijns, who brought the car home, finished second, narrowly missing out on becoming the first LMDh-spec Hypercar to win the event.

To come so close to victory will sting, but BMW will leave La Sarthe with its head held high. The 2026 updates to the car worked a charm; WRT looks to be right at home in Hypercar, and the Bavarian marque can boast its first overall podium in the event since 1999, when it won overall with the V12 LMR.

Completing the podium was the No. 8 Toyota of Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa. It was a strong run for the trio, who for much of the race looked the more threatening crew from the winning marque before the second safety car brought the eventual winners into the fight. But losing time at two pit stops in the closing stages to change the brake drum mounting proved costly in a tight battle on a bone dry track in which temperature and tire selection played a key role in the outcome.

Cadillac’s first car home, the No. 12 from Hertz Team JOTA, finished just off the podium in fourth, 32 seconds off the lead. Will Stevens, Norman Nato and stand-in Louis Deletraz did themselves proud, staying in the mix for most of the race. But after the V-Series.R – with its updated aero package – held an edge overnight when the team became the first to switch to the soft tyre, the pendulum swung the other way.

Cadillac also lost JOTA’s sister car, the No. 38 V-Series.R, to a power steering problem while fighting for the lead at the halfway mark, reducing its strategic options in the closing stages.

With three hours to go, when the track temperature reached its peak of the race, the TR010s had that little bit extra to clinch the win and a double podium, with everyone back to running on the medium Michelin Pilot Sport Endurance compound. The No. 12 crew also lost out to an ill-timed FCY, which forced them to pit for an emergency service stop in the 20th hour.

While Toyota, BMW and Cadillac all played their part in the fight for a historic victory, five other brands fought hard for the best-of-the-rest label.

The reigning Hypercar world champions in the No. 51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P completed the top five, crossing the line just under two minutes off the lead. It wasn’t a total disaster for the Italian marque in its attempt to win the event for a fourth consecutive time, but it never had the speed to make an impact. Its No. 50 499P looked most likely to threaten the established order, but a fire extinguisher failure and ECO change led to its retirement after 284 laps. Was this simply a case of a BoP swing blunting its weaponry? Or does the 499P, after a year without a victory now, need an update to catch back up?

The No. 36 Alpine and defending winners in the No. 83 Ferrari were the final two cars to come home on the lead lap.

In the other classes, there was plenty of drama and action, ending in historic results for three teams.

Inter Europol Competition captured a third LMP2 win in four years in fine style, with a 1-2 finish headed up by its No. 43 crew of Tom Dillmann, Kuba Smiechowski and Nick Yelloly, who won last year’s race and went back-to-back.

LMP2 Pro/Am was dominated by Crowdstrike by APR, which can now claim a Rolex 24 and Le Mans 24 win in the same year.

And TF Sport wrote another chapter in Corvette Racing history, winning LMGT3 with its No. 33 Z06 LMGT3.R. The car was driven masterfully by Jonny Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Texas iron man Ben Keating on his return to racing just nine weeks after shattering his elbow in a biking incident. The team's strategy of burning through Keating's six hours of minimum drive time in the opening eight hours proved a masterstroke in a tight battle with Lexus and Aston Martin.

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PROVISIONAL RESULTS