Toyota has secured a Le Mans and World Endurance Championship double, a result that was almost routine for the Japanese manufacturer during the final years of LMP1, when its Cologne-based team often found itself racing against itself. This year's success carries greater weight, as it follows a difficult 2025 season in which the team managed just one victory and came in a fiercely competitive Hypercar field.
At Le Mans, Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway delivered Toyota its first win in the 24 Hours since 2022 and its sixth overall, a total that now equals Bentley. The result came after a strong return by the team's new iteration of the TS010 Hybrid. In Barcelona this month, Brendon Hartley, Sébastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa led a convincing one-two to clinch the WEC manufacturers' championship with a round to spare. The #8 car, driven by that trio, has taken three wins this campaign and leads team-mates in the #7 car by 17 points heading into the final round at Monza on 8 November.
The championship battle is now effectively a Toyota-only contest. BMW's drivers René Rast, Robin Frijns and Sheldon van der Linde failed to score in Spain, leaving the two Toyota crews to decide the drivers' title at Monza. The race will also mark the final full-time appearance of Conway, who at 43 has announced his retirement from professional racing. A double Le Mans winner and two-time world champion, he spent more than a decade with Toyota and joins the roll-call of leading British long-distance drivers.
The WEC success follows another dominant season for Toyota in the World Rally Championship and, in the view of many observers, represents the brand's strongest year in motorsport given the depth of Hypercar competition. Alpine, Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Genesis and Peugeot have all contested the top class this year, and Ford and McLaren are set to join in 2027. That level of competition recalls earlier high points in endurance racing, including GT1 in the late 1990s, Group C in the 1980s and the 1960s.
The larger question is whether Toyota will return fully to Formula 1. The company currently has a technical association with the Haas team, but a full works commitment of the kind Audi and Cadillac have made would be a different proposition. Toyota's eight F1 campaigns in the 2000s produced no race wins, a record that has faded over time. For now, the company's focus remains on endurance racing, where its latest results have restored its standing at the top of the class.