---
title: "Toyota wins 2026 WEC 6 Hours of Imola as Genesis makes Hypercar debut"
publishDate: 2026-04-26T09:49:40.517Z
lastUpdated: 2026-04-26T09:55:24.399Z
source_url:
html: https://tarmactimes.com/en/wec/articles/toyota-wins-2026-wec-6-hours-of-imola-as-genesis-makes-hypercar-debut/yzfnj2
md: https://tarmactimes.com/en/wec/articles/toyota-wins-2026-wec-6-hours-of-imola-as-genesis-makes-hypercar-debut/yzfnj2/llms.txt
---
Featured image: 
Toyota's rebranded TR010 Hybrid won the 2026 WEC season opener at Imola, beating Ferrari on strategy in a race where the top eight cars were separated by just one minute at the chequered flag. It was Toyota's 50th WEC win, delivered on the team's 100th race entry.
## How Toyota won the 6 Hours of Imola
Ferrari had the pace to lead from the start. Antonio Giovinazzi converted pole position into an early advantage for the #51 car, and for the first couple of hours the 499P looked in control.
Toyota's response was patient. The #8 crew of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa extended their tyre stints, pitting less often and protecting track position while Ferrari cycled through stops. The decisive moment came in the third hour, when a Virtual Safety Car allowed the #8 Toyota to change tyres at minimal time cost. From that point, the race was theirs to manage.
Ferrari's other car, the #50, collected a drive-through penalty for a yellow flag infringement early in the second hour. The same penalty hit the #12 Cadillac, which had been fighting for the podium. Both dropped well out of contention.
Buemi brought the car home 13.352 seconds clear of Giovinazzi's #51 Ferrari, with the sister #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries completing the podium. Buemi now has a record 27 overall WEC victories.
## 2026 WEC Imola Hypercar top ten results
The finishing order told a clear story about how the field has shifted for 2026. Alpine's #35 A424, driven by António Félix da Costa, Charles Milesi and Ferdinand Habsburg, finished fourth on the lead lap, just 59 seconds behind the winner. Their race was built on consistency: strong long-run pace, clean pit stops and a composed final stint defending against a charging Ferrari.
BMW's #20 M Hybrid V8 took fifth with René Rast and Robin Frijns, while the penalised #50 Ferrari recovered to sixth. The #15 BMW, #38 Cadillac, #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie and #83 AF Corse Ferrari rounded out the top ten.
Cadillac's weekend was frustrating. The V-Series.R [still struggles in dirty air](https://tarmactimes.com/en/wec/articles/wec-to-stop-publishing-bop-figures-in-2026/v372pf), a problem that has followed the car across seasons, and neither Jota-run entry could convert qualifying pace into a race result. Peugeot scored no manufacturers' points at all, with neither 9X8 finishing inside the points-paying positions.
## Genesis GMR-001 WEC debut: what we learned at Imola
The [Genesis Magma Racing programme](https://tarmactimes.com/en/wec/articles/genesis-magma-racing-koreas-first-hypercar-arrives-at-le-mans/uc2x5n) had one objective for its first race: finish with both cars. It achieved that, though not without drama.
The #19 car lost 30 minutes in the garage during the first hour after a sensor failure forced the crew to diagnose and repair the problem. Once back on track, it ran cleanly but finished 24 laps down. The #17 entry of André Lotterer, Pipo Derani and Mathys Jaubert had a far better run. Jaubert, the youngest driver in the 2026 Hypercar field, pushed the car into the top ten during his double stint.
A strategic gamble late in the race cost the #17 some positions. The team held off changing tyres, expecting rain that never arrived with enough intensity to change conditions. Derani's closing stint was spent managing degraded rubber rather than attacking, and the car finished 15th.
Qualifying told the more interesting story. Mathieu Jaminet put the #19 within 1.2 seconds of the fastest time in Q1. For a car that did not exist 499 days before its first competitive session, and a team that had never operated at a WEC event, that is a genuine marker.
Cyril Abiteboul was measured afterwards.
– All the way since we arrived for the Prologue, the team had a very encouraging start. As new entrants, we would never be set on outright performance; therefore we had assigned ourselves targets of reliability and execution.
Jaminet was more direct about where the car sits.
– We are definitely in the mix, we have a very strong base and a lot of data to analyse. I'm sure you're going to see Genesis more and more to the front.
## WRT BMW wins LMGT3 after late drama at Imola
The LMGT3 class produced its own story. The #10 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo led from pole and controlled most of the race, until the final hour when the car lost power on the main straight and fell out of contention.
The #69 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Anthony McIntosh, Parker Thompson and Dan Harper inherited the lead and held it. It was the first WEC win for all three drivers, and BMW's first LMGT3 victory since Imola in 2024, when WRT won with the crew that now drives the sister #32 car.
Team principal Vincent Vosse dedicated the win to Juha Miettinen, a Nürburgring NLS racer who died in an accident during the N24 qualifying race the day before. WRT's cars carried black ribbon tributes throughout the weekend.
## 2026 WEC championship standings after Imola
The [next round is at Spa-Francorchamps on 9 May](https://tarmactimes.com/en/wec/articles/wec-2026-season-to-start-at-imola-as-qatar-moves-to-october/4cpvfa), a very different circuit that should reveal more about the true pecking order. Imola is narrow with few overtaking opportunities, which suited Toyota's track-position strategy perfectly. Spa's long straights and high-speed corners will test whether Ferrari's qualifying pace translates better over a race distance, and whether Alpine's long-run form holds up on a layout that rewards outright speed.
The attendance at Imola was 92,175 across the weekend, beating the previous record by around 17,000. Kimi Antonelli, currently leading the F1 World Championship with Mercedes, waved the green flag.
### Hypercar manufacturers' championship
| Pos | Manufacturer | Points |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Toyota | 40 |
| 2 | Ferrari | 27 |
| 3 | BMW | 16 |
| 4 | Alpine | 13 |
| 5 | Cadillac | 4 |
| 6 | Aston Martin | 2 |
| 7 | Peugeot | 0 |
| 8 | Genesis | 0 |
### LMGT3 teams' championship
| Pos | Team | Points |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 1 | Team WRT #69 | 25 |
| 2 | TF Sport #33 | 18 |
| 3 | The Bend Manthey #92 | 15 |
| 4 | Manthey DK Engineering #91 | 12 |
| 5 | Team WRT #32 | 10 |
| 6 | Vista AF Corse #21 | 8 |
| 7 | Garage 59 #58 | 6 |
| 8 | Proton Competition #88 | 4 |
| 9 | Heart of Racing #23 | 2 |
| 10 | Proton Competition #77 | 1 |
| 10 | Garage 59 #10 | 1 |