In Hypercar, the 2026 edition of Lone Star Le Mans was a race that will likely be remembered for two sliding-door moments.
The first came before the race’s first safety car, when the pole-sitting #51 Ferrari lost around 45 seconds in the pits to an error from Antonio Giovinazzi that forced James Calado to conduct a full power cycle to exit the pit box.
At that point, the #51 looked fast, was in control of the race, and looked set to propel its three drivers, Calado, Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi, into championship contention with a maximum score of 26 points (a point for pole and 25 for the win).
But that moment sent the car into a tailspin, which ultimately led to a non-points finish after a late switch to hard tyres that failed to pay off and hand Giovinazzi enough performance to make progress after the second safety car restart in the final hour.
“It was an error in Giovi’s stint,” Calado told DSC. “When he came into the pits, it meant I had to do a full power cycle; there was confusion, and we lost a lot of time. From then onwards, it didn’t go to plan; it was messy, we had VSCs that set us back, and it was game over.”
The second came after the second safety car of the race, with just 11 minutes to go, when a freak hydraulic failure for the #7 Toyota, which was leading, forced Nyck De Vries to retire the car in the dying moments and forego a chance to open up a healthy lead in the standings on a day in which René Rast and Robin Frijns (tied on points with the #7 crew ahead of the weekend) were nowhere on pace and finished outside the top 10.
Toyota’s technical director, David Floury, gave a blunt assessment to reporters post-race: “Yes (we are disappointed). We lost hydraulic pressure. We’ve never had this problem before. We’ve been fighting hard. It’s a shame. We had a chance to go score good points with both cars, and in the end we leave with not enough.
“When you fight for a championship, you need to have everything run perfectly. And today we had a problem with car #8 (which Floury wouldn’t elaborate on) that led to a drive-through and a problem with the #7 that led to retiring the car. You need to take every opportunity, and we did not. We cannot blame anyone but ourselves for what happened today.”
That retirement, the first for the #7 since Bahrain 2024, handed the sister #50 Ferrari the victory with seven laps to go, rewarding Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco and Nicklas Nielsen for their efforts. Like the #51, the #50 showed pace, and even though the decision to take the car off strategy early in the race was nullified by the safety cars that reset the field, they had speed when it mattered and put themselves in position to benefit from a dose of luck to claim their first win since the opener at Qatar in 2025.
“All we could do after the races we had at the start of the season was push here,” Nielsen said. “We knew it would be difficult to fight Toyota, and it didn’t seem like it was going to be our day, but it ended up like that. We were kind of a bit lucky, but on the other hand I think this has been a long time coming. A fantastic job all round; it was not an easy race.”
With three rounds to go, all with standard points on offer due to the calendar change, the title battles are set up nicely. BMW’s Rast and Frijns are still even on 75 points with Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and De Vries at the top of the standings, as no points were scored.
“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to build on the strong first half of the FIA WEC season on this track and in these conditions,” Andreas Roos, the head of BMW M Motorsport, commented. “We were unable to deliver a flawless race with either car. The result, with eighth and twelfth place, is disappointing compared to what we have achieved so far with the BMW M Hybrid V8.
“Especially with car number 20, whose drivers are at the top of the title fight, points would have been important. In the end, we benefited from the retirement of the #7 Toyota. I feel sorry for our competitors, who did a great job and would have deserved the win.”
Below them, and Sheldon van der Linde (who completes the #20 BMW crew, but is 10 points behind his co-drivers having missed Imola), the #8 Toyota crew of Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa and Sebastien Buemi are fourth with 64 points, having closed the gap by eight points with their result. Ferrari’s #51 trio are fifth on 58 points, and both the full-season #15 BMW drivers Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello and the race winners in the #50 499P are 21 points back and even on 54 points in sixth and seventh.
With 78 points still up for grabs, there’s sure to be more twists and turns before the season finale comes to a close.
The FIA Hypercar Manufacturers’ World Championship standings have also taken an intriguing turn. Toyota’s on 140 points and would have pulled away significantly from BMW had the #7 finished. BMW is second with 131, and Ferrari has chipped away at the deficit, sitting just 26 points off in third, with, lest we forget, a second race on home soil at Monza to come in November.
With the dust now settled on the race, it’s still a tough one to assess. Lone Star Le Mans in 2026 wasn’t short of on-track action, or drama, or strategic intrigue, but at times it was messy, a little too feisty, and the timing of the safety cars robbed us of finding out whether or not the alternative strategies in play early in the race would have paid off.
Still, it’s left us with a huge amount to look forward to as we enter the back end of the campaign, with the traditional visit to Fuji up next, followed by a return to Europe for races at Barcelona and Monza. And by the time the champions are crowned, we may look back at Lone Star Le Mans in particular as a race that played a significant part in deciding which manufacturer and which drivers are crowned FIA Hypercar World Champions for 2026.
Images courtesy of Keith Rizzo/Sarah Weeks
