Toyota Gazoo Racing has opened the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship season with a victory that will stand as one of the team's most significant. The #8 TR010 HYBRID of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa took the chequered flag at the 6 Hours of Imola in front of a record crowd of 92,175 fans — the team's 50th WEC win, delivered in its 100th WEC race in the hybrid era.
The result came with all the weight of a statement. Toyota arrived at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari fighting defending world champion Ferrari on its home turf, with the #51 Ferrari of Miguel Molina starting from pole. Molina wrestled second place from Hartley on the opening lap using soft tyres against the Toyota's mediums — a strategic swing that gave Ferrari the early one-two the Scuderia's home supporters had travelled for.
But over six hours the #8 crew chipped back, and in the final stint the Toyota had done enough to claim a narrow win over the #51 Ferrari, with the sister #7 Toyota completing a podium sandwich around the Maranello machine.
"It was a good start with the TR010," Hartley said in parc ferme. "Hopefully we'll be in a similar position in the next two races."
His teammate Buemi echoed the sentiment that a tyre-strategy puzzle had defined the afternoon. "We didn't have much experience on the soft. We felt better on the medium. So in the end I'm just happy with this result."
Alpine beat the BMW, Cadillac and Aston Martin Hypercars in a frantic late-race scrap for fourth, but on a weekend where Ferrari led for five-and-a-half hours, the failure to convert a home pole into a home win will sting.
In LMGT3, the new-look #69 Team WRT BMW of Parker Thompson, Tony Mintosh and Dan Harper scored a debut win together, profiting from heartbreak for Garage 59's pole-sitting McLaren. Thompson, who celebrated on his crew's radio with a roar of disbelief, had been in the fight all weekend. "Awesome job," his race engineer told him afterwards. "Great job all week. Built a good package for the weekend. I think we're off to a good start."
TF Sport's Corvette came home second in LMGT3 ahead of the Manthey-prepared Ferrari of DK Engineering, with a second Team WRT BMW completing the top five. The Ford Mustang GT3 programme scored its first points with seventh and tenth, and the incoming Aston Martin Vantage GT3 survived to ninth.
Championship standings after the opener mirror the podium order. Toyota's #8 leads the Hypercar fight from Ferrari's #51 and the #7 Toyota, with Alpine fourth. BMW outscored Alpine in LMGT3 and has two cars in the top five of the class.
"A sea of adoring faces, a record crowd, and they've been thrilled by an epic battle," the trackside broadcast observed as the podium ceremony wrapped. "Toyota's 100th race and their 50th win. They remain the benchmarks in the category, and Ferrari know what they have to do to take another world championship title. They have to beat the long-serving legends that are Toyota Racing."
The WEC now heads to Spa-Francorchamps and Le Mans, where Toyota will look to defend its early momentum and Ferrari will look for the speed it had at Imola without the pit-stop losses that kept Molina's #51 from closing the deal on home soil.
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*Originally published on [Motorsports Global](https://motorsports.global/article/toyotas-50th-wec-win-in-100th-hybrid-race-as-tr010-stuns-ferrari-at-imola-opener). Visit for full coverage.*
