For the third time in four years, Toyota is leaving the Italian round of the FIA World Endurance Championship with the winners’ trophy, after again coming out on top in a duel with Ferrari.
There was very little to separate Toyota’s new TR010 Hybrid and Ferrari’s 499P this weekend, with, in the end, a strategic gamble for the third stint proving to be the difference maker.
At a venue where track position is critical, Toyota electing to triple-stint its starting tyres gave the #8 car of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sebastien Buemi the lead, before a Virtual Safety Car was called soon after, enabling Hirakawa to switch to new tyres with his advantage remaining intact.
The value of track position meant that the key moment of Toyota’s weekend actually occurred yesterday, when Hirakawa surprised himself by placing the #8 TR010 Hybrid second on the grid in Hyperpole, and well in contention for today’s race.
“The big, crucial thing happened yesterday,” Hartley explained post-race. “Ryo putting it on the front row, which came out of nowhere.
“We weren’t expecting that going into qualifying, so he really set us up, gave us a win before the race started. Then I lost the place to the #50 into [Tamburello]. He started on the soft so I knew that it was going to be a bit of a challenge to keep them behind.
“And then we kept our head down, looked after tyres. I think the team played the strategy to perfection today, going on the triple, gaining track position, maybe getting a little bit lucky with a virtual safety car to change the tyres.
“Then at the end, the big team effort of Kamui [Kobayashi] staying out and jumping #51, giving us some space. It feels nice to have such a team effort and such a race play out with no faults and mistakes from anyone in the team.”
A fault-free run, a category in which Toyota used to be the distinct leader, is more notable this weekend, following a string of execution errors in the latter half of 2025.
This, in turn, meant that ironing these mistakes out became a key focus of its off-season work, and following up its 1-2 finish in Bahrain with another victory today suggests that this has paid off.
“Definitely, we were not happy with some of our races last year,” admitted Toyota’s technical director David Floury.
“It’s not the way we want to race. We had no turnover in the team, so it’s not a matter of hiring new people; it’s more about working all together as a group to improve and to reflect on what we did wrong, what we think we can improve, and get it sorted. We pushed very hard, and we will keep pushing.”
Buemi, who played such a critical role in the #8 crew’s last triumph at Bahrain in 2024, had a much simpler role today. Having climbed into the car as the race leader, the Swiss driver’s role was to keep a safe gap to the Ferrari behind and bring the victory home.
“I just had to make sure we stay on the track at the end,” he explained. “When it starts to rain, it’s never really easy to know how much margin you have to take, and at one point, the tyres will just give up, and here there is a lot of travel, so you don’t want to brake too late.
“In the lead, you tend to take a deeper margin, which I did, but the car was good. It was kind of easy to drive, and I felt in control. I felt like we could fight with the others today, so I can’t wait for Spa.”
Whilst Toyota has positioned its pace as a surprise, it didn’t come as a shock to Ferrari, with the Italian marque having identified the TR010 Hybrid as its leading opposition since Free Practice.
This threat materialised during the race, with the Japanese cars proving more efficient at effectively saving energy than the 499Ps.
“On our side, it’s difficult to say what we could have done better,” stated Giuliano Salvi, Ferrari’s team operations manager.
“Toyota looked like its had the edge. It was slightly better than us, because we couldn’t keep the same pace, the same condition of LiCo (lift-coast) savings. For whatever reason, they did a better job compared to us, so we need to analyse how to improve on that.”
Salvi has no regrets over the decision not to triple-stint, given Ferrari made it whilst holding the advantage.
“In the earlier part of the race, from the data we had, also from practice, it was a bit too tight,” he explained.
“And when you are in front, you don’t need to gamble, and when you are behind, especially because we were moving with the two cars that had a bit of the edge compared to the rest of the pack, that was a correct choice from Toyota to try to gamble.”
This defensive mentality also explains Ferrari’s approach to tyre strategy, with the Italian marque starting all three of its cars on different compounds. The #50 ran on softs in the opening stages, the #51 on mediums, and the #83 on a mix of two of each.
“Honestly, we wanted this win with all our will, because we are in our home race. For us this is important, so we tried to exploit all the possible scenarios,” Salvi said.
“It has to be said here that honestly, in this condition, on this track, the two compounds have a wide overlay of behaviour, so at the end we tried all the configurations.”
Although not a win, second place for James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi is, at least, a solid start to the defence of their drivers’ world championship title.
“I’m quite satisfied about the result, plenty of points for the championship,” Pier Guidi said. “Of course, we wanted to win in front of our fans, but maybe we missed a bit of luck.
“When they got the jump in front of us because they didn’t change tyres, and then after five laps, everyone pitted again and changed tyres, so the advantage of our newer tyres was gone, and they were still in front.
“After that, for us, it was impossible to overtake. I spent two stints behind the Toyota, and with the acceleration that we have in this kind of track, it’s impossible for us to overtake.”
In the closing stages, the #7 Toyota inserted itself into what had been developing into a duel between the #8 Toyota and #51 Ferrari, following a decision not to change tyres when Kamui Kobayashi climbed aboard the #7 TR010 Hybrid.
Rather than simply a call intended to help the sister entry by hindering the #51 Ferrari, this was actually a gamble designed to try and claim second position for the #7 crew through an ambitious quadruple stint, Kobayashi revealed post-race.
“I asked for this opportunity,” Kobayashi said. “Because if I change tyres for my stint, it’s not going to be easy to catch a Ferrari, so it’s better to take the chance that I jump the Ferrari and we see if we can survive there. My first stint, we managed to survive there, but unfortunately, we had a tyre pressure problem, so we had to change a tyre, and that’s game over already.”
The decision to change tyres, and limit the #7 Toyota to a still impressive 104-lap triple-stint, was a practical one, with the aim of securing a podium finish and 15 valuable points at this early stage of the championship.
“If it’s a matter of winning or losing the championship, you might consider going for it, but in the opening race, you just consider the big picture and try to assess risk,” Floury explained.
“I think it would have been really marginal in many aspects, especially as we had the forecast at the end of the race, when, if you have to run with medium, with no rubber anymore at the end of the race and wet conditions, I think it’s very difficult.”
Ferrari, meanwhile, did not feel like the stint Giovinazzi spent behind Kobayashi altered the final result.
“It would have been closer, but I think they had the margin to keep us at bay,” Salvi said.
After Ferrari’s domination of the early-season races last year, it appears that they will face a much more competitive title battle in 2026, with a rejuvenated and on-form Toyota already well-placed to attempt to reclaim its crown.
Images courtesy of DPPI & Andrew Lofthouse
