WEC Spa 2026: BMW achieves breakthrough with maiden victory

– Not the strong Alpine, not polesitter Peugeot, but BMW takes the crown at the dress rehearsal for the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Rene Rast, Robin Frijns, and Sheldon van der Linde are the winners in the Ardennes at the home race for the WRT team. (Result)

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There were two premieres: The first WEC victory for the BMW M Hybrid V8 coincided with the first six-figure attendance in the World Endurance Championship (WEC): 101,606 spectators followed a spectacular race with four safety car phases preceded by VSC.

It was obvious that the organizer wanted to see different brands at the front this time, after Toyota and Ferrari had dominated the 6 Hours of Imola. Since the Balance of Performance (BoP) is kept secret, this cannot be verified. In the end, the right strategy played the most important role anyway. BMW was outstanding in terms of speed.

An early safety car – Eric Powell had just brought the Proton-Ford #77 (Powell/Tuck/Priaulx) to the front, only to throw it into the gravel at the Stavelot/Paul-Frere corner – opened a window for strategic flexibility.

The field quickly split into two groups: Most cars tried to save fuel and stop later at the full hour. However, other cars tried an alternative strategy: They made their first pit stop after just over 40 minutes and drove flat out without regard for fuel consumption, even if that meant one more stop. This was especially pursued by BMW #20 and Toyota #8 (Buemi/Hartley/Hirakawa; 10th).

Which strategy would be successful depended mainly on the number of safety cars. Without SC, the full-throttle strategy was promising. Especially BMW #20 pulled away from the field in big steps. Due to the different strategies, there was a yo-yo effect, so the lead kept changing between BMW and Alpine #35 (da Costa/Milesi/Habsburg; DNF).

Besides BMW #20 and Toyota #8, Aston Martin #009 (Riberas/Sörensen; DNF) also tried the full-throttle strategy, and Ferrari #50 (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen; 3rd) was forced into this strategy when a pit stop went completely wrong and lost 30 seconds to the devil.

Three SCs in the last two hours

The SC phase came a little more than two hours before the end when Matteo Cressoni spun the Iron-Lynx Mercedes-AMG #79 (Zelger/Cressoni/Hodenius; DNF) and the very unlucky polesitter Malthe Jakobsen, who had just taken over the Peugeot #94 (Duval/Jakobsen/Pourchaire; DNF), could not avoid it on cold tires and crashed into the side of the AMG.

This helped the “full throttle team” because all the fuel savers, including Peugeot #94, had just stopped. So at the restart, BMW #20 led ahead of Toyota #8. Ferrari #50, which had actually fallen hopelessly to the back of the field after the botched pit stop, also benefited and returned to the track in fifth place.

Alpine #35 and BMW #15 (Magnussen/Marciello/D. Vanthoor; 2nd), who had previously been among the fuel savers, went into the final sprint from third and fourth place. The loser of the SC phase was Cadillac #12 (Stevens/Nato/Deletraz; 9th), which had initially led the field but completely collapsed in the final phase.

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At the restart, Charles Milesi initially lost two positions because he touched the rear of Buemi’s Toyota #8. Dries Vanthoor in BMW #15 and Antonio Fuoco in Ferrari #50 passed him. The race seemed to be settling into a rhythm when exactly one hour before the end there was a third safety car phase.

The reason was an accident between the WRT BMW #32 (Leung/Gelael/Farfus; 14th LMGT3) of Augusto Farfus and Alessandro Pier Guidi’s Ferrari #51 (Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi; DNF), which meant the end for the latter. The BMW received a drive-through penalty after pulling in front of a Porsche while braking, which pushed it into the Ferrari.

The first restart went wrong when Aston Martin #009 of Alex Riberas was pushed into the grass and crashed into the guardrail during an attack by Antonio Felix da Costa’s Alpine #35. Thus, the last restart took place 24 minutes before the end. Now it was Felix da Costa who threw the race away himself, burying all Alpine’s chances of a podium after such a good start to the day.

Frijns drove the victory home, behind him Kevin Magnussen secured it by blocking Antonio Fuoco in Ferrari #50. Fuoco had the instruction not to attack but had to watch out for Kamui Kobayashi in Toyota #7 (Conway/Kobayashi/de Vries; 5th), who still wanted to secure an unexpected podium for Toyota. The #8 had fallen back during the safety car one hour before the end because it had stopped shortly before and everyone else came in under VSC.

Kobayashi instead lost fourth place to Tom Gamble in Aston Martin #007 (Tincknell/Gamble; 4th). Behind Toyota #7 came AF Corse Ferrari #83 (Ye/Kubica/Hanson; 6th) and Peugeot #93 (di Resta/Vandoorne/Cassidy; 7th).

A sensation was achieved by Genesis #17 (Lotterer/Derani/Jaubert; 8th), who scored the first points for Genesis Magma Racing in only their second race. The sister car #19 (Jaminet/Chatin/Juncadella; 13th) again suffered technical bad luck in the new project and lost eight laps due to electronic problems.

McLaren makes up for lost Imola win

The LMGT3 race was, apart from the aforementioned curious incident involving Eric Powell, mainly characterized by penalties for track limits. Only those who stayed clean had a chance to win in the end.

AF Corse Ferrari #21 (Heriau/Mann/Rovera; 4th LMGT3) crossed the finish line first but received a 5-second time penalty for an unsafe release. Thus, Garage 59 McLaren #10 (Au/Fleming/Kirchhöfer; 1st LMGT3) inherited the win, having still been leading half an hour before the end in Imola.

Second was Heart of Racing Aston Martin #27 (James/Robichon/Drudi; 2nd LMGT3), followed by Manthey Porsche #92 (Shahin/Pera/Lietz; 3rd LMGT3). Fifth place for Garage 59 McLaren #58 (West/Gehrsitz/Goethe) rounded off a successful day for McLaren and Garage 59.

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The next WEC round is the 24 Hours of Le Mans on June 13 and 14.