The title fight in the World Endurance Championship has been blown wide open after three of the leading cars failed to score points at the Lone Star Le Mans.
Heading into last weekend’s six-hour fixture at the Circuit of the Americas, the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 and the #7 Toyota TR010 Hybrid were tied at the top of the standings on 75 points, with the #51 Ferrari 499P trailing them by 18 points in third place.
Toyota appeared to be in prime contention to pull away from its championship rivals in the closing stages of the race, with Nyck de Vries holding a comfortable lead in the #7 car he shared with Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi.
However, less than 15 minutes before the chequered flag, hydraulic issues began affecting the power steering on the lead Toyota, forcing de Vries to bring the car back to the pits and retire from the race.
Under normal circumstances, that would have been a major blow to the #7 crew’s title hopes. But their nearest challengers Robin Frijns and Rene Rast could only finish 12th in the #20 BMW they shared with Sheldon van der Linde.
BMW was considered by many as the favourite for the title on the back of its recent form, but its LMDh cars entered by the factory WRT team were never really in the hunt in what turned out to be its worst weekend in WEC since last year’s Bahrain finale.
Ferrari was the biggest beneficiary from Toyota’s misfortune, but it wasn’t the team’s leading car in the championship that struck gold. Instead, the #50 entry of Nicklas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina claimed victory after having accumulated just 29 points in the opening four rounds prior to Austin.
Ferrari’s leading challenger, the #51 car of Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado, could only muster 11th after being caught out by the timing of the last safety car. The crew had already lost time when Giovinazzi accidentally shut down the car in the pits when handing over the driving duties to Calado.
Incredibly, the #20 BMW and #7 Toyota were so far ahead of the competition before Austin that they still jointly lead the standings after the race, but their grip on the title fight has weakened considerably.
Brendon Hartley, Sebastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa are now right in the mix in the #8 Toyota, just 11 points adrift of the leading duo, despite only finishing sixth at the Circuit of the Americas.
The #51 Ferrari now finds itself in fourth place, 17 points off the lead, after picking up a point for claiming pole position at Austin.
In the manufacturers’ table, Toyota has eked out a nine-point advantage over BMW, with Ferrari now 24 points adrift in third.
More importantly, the 2026 WEC no longer looks like a two-way fight between Toyota and BMW, which had split the victories between them in the first half of the season.
Ferrari’s first victory since the 2025 Le Mans 24 Hours served as a great boost to the Italian marque in the title run-in, while also demonstrating that Toyota and BMW are not invincible.
Toyota, already reeling from a poor showing at Sao Paolo, will now have some head-scratching to do after reliability problems struck both its cars at Austin. Likewise, BMW will be left to ponder its lack of speed after finishing first or second in the three races prior to COTA.
Now, six different crews, representing three different manufacturers, are separated by 21 points at the head of the drivers' standings.
The WEC’s decision to drop the bonus-points events in Qatar and Bahrain due to the war in the Middle East was expected to make it difficult for teams further down the standings to recover lost ground. With the replacement events in Barcelona and Madrid running to the standard six-hour schedule, the 2026 WEC was set to award 26 fewer points than originally planned,
But Toyota’s #7 car lost almost exactly that many points by retiring from the lead in Austin. What was expected to be a race that consolidated the championship order has instead reset the title fight with three rounds remaining.
