WEC races in 2026 are like London buses; after an achingly long wait, two come at once. Following the gripping start to the season at Imola just three weeks ago, the teams arrive in Spa-Francorchamps for the annual six-hour race that is widely considered the dress rehearsal for Le Mans.
It’s a circuit that always delivers great racing, and if the weather holds, the crowd figure is expected to comfortably exceed the 2025 figure of just under 1000,000 fans, as advance ticket sales are believed to have already matched last year’s total weeks ago.
If the 6 Hours of Imola was anything to go by, the fans who make the pilgrimage to the Ardennes forest will be in for a treat. Ferrari navigated race week on home turf as the favourite, but in the end, Toyota and its new TR010 Hybrid came out on top in the brand’s 100th WEC start.
And that’s a natural place to start. Will it be another Toyota vs Ferrari duel out front, or will another brand in Hypercar play the role of spoiler?
As a reminder, for 2026, the rule-makers have decided to keep the BoP table private for each event. We don’t know what the values were to kick off the season at Imola, and we won’t know what tweaks have been made to the ‘Rolling BoP’ for Saturday’s race at Spa. Like it or loathe it, the rule is here to stay for the foreseeable future, so we’ll be going in blind once again.
That’s what we don’t know. What we do know is that the 499P is a formidable platform that suits Spa well and won the race last year, and the introduction of the TR010 HYBRID has helped ensure the Toyota team (searching for its first Spa win since 2023 this weekend) carried over momentum from the 2025 season finale into the new campaign. As a result, you can reasonably expect both factories to be fighting up front when the lights go out on Saturday afternoon and add to their early-season points tally.
Imola showed that a number of other brands were not far behind, though. Alpine finished fourth behind the two Toyotas and the #51 Ferrari with its #36 A424 on the debut of its EVO Joker, focused on increasing downforce. Both Peugeot and Cadillac showed speed over a single lap in Qualifying. And BMW snuck a top-five finish with the new-look M Hybrid V8 driven by Rene Rast and Robin Frijns.
Which of those hopefuls are most likely to break through? With the majority of the teams in the top class still learning how best to optimise their updated machinery, and no BoP table to pour over, it’s never been tougher to predict the hierarchy.
Either way, Hertz Team JOTA, winner of the 2024 6 Hours of Spa in its final year as a Porsche customer, should certainly be one to watch. The updated V-Series.R showed promise at Imola and has delivered a string of podium finishes to kick off the year with Action Express in IMSA.
The second WEC round at Spa-Francorchamps is another big test for the car’s new aero package and brakes, and may give us a hint of what’s to come in June at La Sarthe.
Notable is the team’s driver line-up, which has been bolstered by two members of Cadillac’s full-time IMSA GTP stable.
The late addition of Louis Deletraz to the #12 (in place of the recovering Alex Lynn) sees the Swiss make his first Hypercar start outside of Le Mans, and the planned introduction of Jack Aitken to the #38 for his first WEC start of the season adds punch to a crew looking to build on its P8 finish in the opener.
Aston Martin, too, is hoping it will be more competitive with its pair of Valkyries, which again struggled over Imola’s bumps and kerbs. The Spa-Francorchamps circuit has been circled by the team as a track where it could all come together.
On the subject of drivers, there’s no IMSA clash this time, but The Heart of Racing has opted to stick with two drivers per car. IMSA GTP full-timers Roman De Angelis and Ross Gunn will have to wait until Le Mans for their 2026 WEC debuts.
BMW, on the other hand, has added Dries Vanthoor and Sheldon van der Linde to its line-ups for the event, after the pair missed Imola to race at Long Beach and took part in last weekend’s race at Laguna Seca.
That leaves Genesis Magma Racing. The Korean marque’s Hypercar debut was extremely encouraging, with both cars running reliably throughout the week (the only blot being the #17’s sensor issue during the race) and not too far off on pace.
Nobody should be expecting the GMR-001s to be fighting for points just yet, especially given they are racing at a venue Genesis has not tested at beforehand for the first time, but if the team can get through this weekend unscathed and maximise the track time available, then everyone in the garage can afford to head to Le Mans confident that things are headed firmly in the right direction.
In LMGT3, all eyes will be on Garage 59, as it seeks to avenge its heartbreaking near-miss from Imola.
Rookies Antares Au, Tom Fleming and Marvin Kirchhöfer looked on course to deliver the British squad a sensational win on its FIA WEC debut, only for an alternator problem to eliminate the #10 McLaren LMGT3 Evo from contention.
The pace, however, was ominous, and with no success handicap, on a circuit at which Garage 59 has shown strong form in other series in the past, the #10 entry should be a factor once again this weekend.
The McLaren’s demise handed victory at Imola to the #69 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo of Anthony McIntosh, Parker Thompson and Dan Harper. The Belgian squad, therefore, enters its home race in the championship lead.
Spa hasn’t been a happy hunting ground for WRT in LMGT3 competition, however, with a single ninth-place finish and three retirements to its name across the past two years.
TF Sport’s #33 Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R finished second at Imola, with Bronze-ranked Blake McDonald set to make his second and final scheduled start of the year this weekend before Ben Keating’s scheduled return from injury for Le Mans.
The sister, Racing Team Turkey-branded #34 effort also showed podium pace at Imola, only to retire, and can be expected to contend again, especially with standout Bronze driver Peter Dempsey making the car the favourite to progress to Hyperpole.
Manthey’s pair of Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) LMGT3s proved exactly why the German squad is an undefeated LMGT3 champion at Imola, finishing third and fourth, respectively, on a day where they didn’t appear to have the pace to threaten for the win. At a circuit, they finished 1-2 in 2024, expect Manthey to find a way to fight near the front again.
Defending Spa winner Vista AF Corse, and its #21 Ferrari 296 LMGT3 Evo of François Heriau, Simon Mann and Alessio Rovera will be looking for a stronger outing this weekend, following an anonymous run to sixth on home turf at the season opener.
Last year, Spa was the site of Proton Competition’s only podium finish with its Ford Mustang LMGT3. Following the first global victory for the car’s Evo kit at Laguna Seca, the German outfit will be hoping that this momentum carries over to the other side of the Atlantic, especially given Spa was the venue of its pre-season test.
Akkodis ASP Team experienced a disastrous start to its 2026 campaign in Italy, with both cars running into mechanical woes early on after showing the pace to contend.
At the site of the Lexus’ maiden FIA WEC pole position 12 months ago, the expectation will be for both cars to get through six hours competitively, before, for the second year in a row, the team’s championship challenge is over before it gets going.
Also seeking to progress from disappointing outings at Imola will be Heart of Racing and Iron Lynx, with the pair picking up two and zero points respectively, and in need of a strong performance to provide some momentum heading to next month’s 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps is also set to be a better test for the new LMGT3 tyre regulations. With Imola notoriously light on tyres, many teams didn’t take advantage of their increased allocation for this season, but could this come into play at the Ardennes venue? Goodyear certainly believes that will be the case, with its programme manager, Stephen Bickley, expecting less variation in strategy.
“The nature of the circuit means degradation is higher, so teams will focus on extracting maximum performance and are likely to equip new tyres at each stop,” he said.
The 2026 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps will be held on 7th to 9th May 2026.
