With the 6 Hours of Fuji in the rear-view mirror, the FIA World Endurance Championship’s journey across the globe resumes in Spain this weekend for the first of two European races to finish the 2026 season.
With so much news emerging for next year, and all the flyaway races checked off, it almost feels like the campaign is starting again, with a Prologue coming up before the weekend. But no! 12 hours of racing remain, and titles still need settling in both classes!
The championship run-in starts this weekend in Barcelona, which hosts its first-ever WEC race and the championship’s 50th round in Europe. Despite the weather forecast looking rather wet for Saturday and Sunday, ticket sales are believed to be extremely strong, with the organisers expecting more than 60,000 fans through the gates over the three days.
With 52 points still up for grabs (25 for the win and 1 for pole at Barcelona and Monza apiece), the current mathematical possibilities extend way down the order, with 10 cars, in theory at least, still in the hunt.
Only the Peugeot and Genesis crews, plus the drivers in the #009 Aston Martin, #83 AF Corse Ferrari and #36 Alpine are mathematically out of the Drivers’ Championship running.
The #8 Toyota trio lead the Drivers’ standings by a healthy 10 points over the sister car. A win would at the very least put Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa in a strong position for the season finale next month and could, depending on the results behind them, seal the deal in Spain.
A poor day at the office for the Toyotas, though, could see the contending drivers from BMW and Ferrari’s factory teams and the #35 Alpine crew right back in there. If all the aforementioned teams struggle and Toyota scores well, Monza could see the Cologne-based TR010s in a very comfortable position in Italy.
In the Manufacturers’ standings, 88 points are still available, which means that the top five remain in contention.
Toyota, with 169 points, holds a 23-point advantage over BMW, with Ferrari a further 31 points back. Alpine and Cadillac can still win the championship, both on 96 points, 73 points off the lead.
While the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is a new race venue for the WEC, it hosted a pre-season Prologue in 2019 and is a familiar destination for many teams and drivers, having hosted countless endurance races and private tests over the years.
Still, Genesis, BMW and Cadillac opted to test at the circuit during August to gather extra data and experience ahead of the weekend. Whether that serves as a leg up for the weekend remains to be seen, especially as the conditions are expected to be drastically different.
Several significant driver storylines add further interest to the weekend.
Toyota’s Sebastien Buemi will make his 100th WEC race start on Sunday; a milestone that coincides with his arrival as a championship leader. The Swiss driver has been central to Toyota’s success since its debut LMP1 season in 2012 and will aim to mark the occasion with another strong result.
In the sister TR010, meanwhile, Mike Conway is set to take part in his first race since announcing his retirement from professional racing. That news adds an extra dimension to the weekend as the experienced Briton enters the closing stages of his WEC career, hoping to end it on a high with a second World Championship title.
Elsewhere, it’s a significant weekend for Peugeot as it continues to ramp up its preparations for 2027, when it is set to introduce an overhauled 9X8 to the field. Newly minted factory driver Alex Quinn joins the line-up for his WEC and Peugeot race debut. Fresh off wrapping up the IMSA LMP2 title at Road Atlanta with CrowdStrike Racing by APR, Quinn will race in the #93 alongside Nick Cassidy and Paul Di Resta in the seat previously filled by the departed Stoffel Vandoorne.
At Cadillac, Alex Lynn returns to the team after neck surgery forced him to miss most of the season. His WEC comeback, a week after a one-off appearance in the ELMS finale with Algarve Pro Racing at Portimao, boosts Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA, which is still searching for its first win of the season. Lynn rejoins the #12 line-up and will share the V-Series.R with Norman Nato and Will Stevens.
The LMGT3 championship fight is another major focus in Barcelona, with TF Sport’s #33 Corvette and Jonny Edgar closing in on WEC title success.
Heading into the weekend, 12 of the 18 cars are still able, mathematically at least, to overhaul the #33 Corvette, with the full-season drivers in those crews still able to overtake Jonny Edgar, sitting pretty (and solo after both Ben Keating (injury) and Nicky Catsburg (IMSA clash) missed races earlier in the season) at the head of the Drivers’ standings.
Should the #33 win, though, it’s game over for the rest. And Tom Ferrier’s TF Sport team arrives in Spain buoyed by its ELMS success in Portimão last weekend, where it secured a second consecutive LMGT3 championship title.
The #33 Corvette will need to balance the pressure of a championship opportunity with the demands of a six-hour race at a circuit that combines a variety of corner types and places significant importance on tyre performance. Success ballast, as ever, will also play a key role.
Elsewhere in the class, the spotlight will remain on the Heart of Racing’s LMGT3 crews, after the #27’s win at COTA and strong podium performance at Fuji.
To prepare for the WEC’s first race weekend in Barcelona, it tested at the circuit to allow its Bronze drivers, Ian James and Grey Newell, who haven’t yet raced there, to establish a baseline for the weekend. The forecast conditions, though, may complicate the process of translating private-test data and experience into race performance!
This weekend’s event, organised on a short call after the cancellation of the races at Qatar and Bahrain, clashes with GT World Challenge Europe’s meeting in Portimão, creating a difficult choice for drivers in both championships.
Only a small number of competitors have committed to contesting both events, all of them in LMGT3 (Darren Leung, Rui Andrade, Mattia Drudi, Tom Fleming and Benji Goethe); the other affected drivers have prioritised the WEC round in Spain.
For the WEC teams, the focus will be on making the most of the opportunity at a new venue, with the title battles reaching a critical stage and the final round at Monza looming.
With championship points at a premium, unpredictable weather possible and a circuit that has never previously hosted a WEC race, the inaugural 6 Hours of Barcelona promises to be a significant test for the field as we power towards the off-season.
Sunday’s race is set to get underway at 12:00 local time. Notably, the event also introduces a revised Free Practice 3 format on Saturday, with split sessions for the LMGT3 and Hypercar teams on either side of the first stage of Qualifying to extend trackside action for fans ahead of Hyperpole, which begins at 15:40 local time.
Images courtesy of DPPI, Peugeot and Genesis
