The World Endurance Championship and the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The World Endurance Championship

The official WEC site says the championship was established in 2012 by the FIA and the Automobile Club de l'Ouest (ACO), which run it jointly. Wikipedia (secondary) describes it as the successor to the Intercontinental Le Mans Cup. Each car is shared by a crew of drivers, and the winning crews listed on this page each had three. For what endurance racing involves, see sports cars and endurance.

The classes

• Hypercar. The top class since 2021, per Wikipedia (secondary). It admits prototypes built to either the Le Mans Hypercar (LMH) or LMDh rules, and LMDh cars have been able to race the full season since 2023.
• LMGT3. The official WEC site says this class, built on the FIA GT3 platform for private and pro-am teams and run on Goodyear tyres, replaced LMGTE in 2024.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans also has an LMP2 class, with its own winners listed below.

Points

The official WEC site gives a scale that depends on race length:

Points go to the top 10, and one extra point goes to the pole sitter in each class after Hyperpole qualifying.

The 2025 season

Wikipedia (secondary) says the 2025 season had eight rounds after a prologue at Losail. The official WEC site and the FIA report that the titles were settled in Bahrain:

• Hypercar drivers: Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in the No. 51 Ferrari 499P.
• Hypercar manufacturers: Ferrari. The FIA puts its margin over Toyota at 75 points; Ferrari's own release says 74.
• LMGT3 drivers and teams: Richard Lietz, Ryan Hardwick and Riccardo Pera of Manthey 1st Phorm, in a Porsche.

The 2026 season (in progress)

Two rounds were replaced during the year. On 28 July 2026 the FIA WEC and the FIA announced that the Qatar 1812 km would be replaced by the first 6 Hours of Barcelona and the 8 Hours of Bahrain by the 6 Hours of Monza, citing developments in the Middle East that affected freight and travel. The Monza change was announced as subject to approval by the FIA World Motor Sport Council. The dates of the first six rounds are from Wikipedia (secondary); the last two are from the FIA WEC announcement.

Wikipedia (secondary) notes that Genesis made its Hypercar debut in 2026 with the Oreca-built GMR-001 LMDh, while Porsche Penske Motorsport withdrew from the WEC Hypercar class.

Recent rounds and the title race

• Fuji, 27 September 2026. The official WEC site reports a home win for Toyota after a late twist. Motorsport.com and DailySportscar name the No. 8 Toyota of Ryo Hirakawa, Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley as winners by 0.591 seconds over the No. 36 Alpine, and the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 of Augusto Farfus, Sean Gelael and Darren Leung as LMGT3 winners.
• Barcelona, 18 October 2026. The No. 8 Toyota won again, leading a Toyota one-two ahead of the No. 7 car of Nyck de Vries, Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi. That result clinched the 2026 Hypercar manufacturers' title for Toyota. Motorsport.com gives the margin as 0.583 seconds, with the No. 50 Ferrari third and the No. 38 Cadillac fourth.

The official WEC report from Barcelona says only the two Toyota crews can still win the 2026 Hypercar drivers' title, which will be settled at Monza on 8 November. Before Barcelona, the Spanish outlet Motor16 reported the No. 8 crew 10 points ahead of the No. 7 crew; updated standings after Barcelona were not available to us. As of 20 October 2026 no drivers' champion had been decided.

The 24 Hours of Le Mans

Origins

The ACO, founded in 1906, organises the race and marks its 120th anniversary in 2026. It says the idea came out of the 1922 Paris motor show, from ACO secretary general Georges Durand, Rudge-Whitworth's French representative Emile Coquille and engineer-journalist Charles Faroux; Faroux suggested eight hours and Durand pushed for a full 24. Wikipedia (secondary) dates the first race to 26 and 27 May 1923 and gives the Circuit de la Sarthe as 13.626 km today; the ACO describes the 1923 course as a roughly 17 km public-road circuit south of Le Mans.

Records

• Most wins by a driver: Tom Kristensen with nine (1997, 2000 to 2006, 2008 and 2013), plus 14 podiums from 18 starts, per the ACO.
• Most wins by a manufacturer: Porsche with 19, then Audi with 13 and Ferrari with 12, according to the ACO's figures after the 2025 race.
• Greatest distance: 5,410.713 km (397 laps), set in 2010 by the No. 9 Audi R15 TDI Plus of Timo Bernhard, Romain Dumas and Mike Rockenfeller, per the official WEC site. One ACO page rounds it to 5,405 km.

The 2025 race

The 93rd running, on 14 and 15 June 2025, was won by the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson after 387 laps, 14.084 seconds ahead of the No. 6 Porsche 963 of Kevin Estre, Laurens Vanthoor and Matt Campbell. Ferrari says its No. 51 car finished third, 28.487 seconds behind the winner, and calls it a third consecutive Le Mans win. The ACO notes it was Ferrari's 12th Le Mans victory and that Kubica and Ye became the first Polish and first Chinese winners.

• LMP2: the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 of Jakub Smiechowski, Tom Dillmann and Nick Yelloly.
• LMGT3: the No. 92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche 911 GT3 R of Ryan Hardwick, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz, the second straight class win for Manthey and Lietz, per Sportscar365.
• Pole: Alex Lynn in the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac (3:23.166), with Cadillac taking the whole front row, per the ACO.

The 2026 race

The ACO's race report says the 94th running, on 13 and 14 June 2026, was won by the No. 7 Toyota TR010 Hybrid of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries after 381 laps, 10.913 seconds ahead of the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 of BMW M Team WRT. It was Toyota's sixth Le Mans win.

• LMP2: the No. 43 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 of Smiechowski, Dillmann and Yelloly won again after 361 laps, one lap ahead of the team's sister No. 343 car, with the No. 29 Forestier Racing by Panis third. The ACO calls it a historic one-two, and Sportscar365 notes it was Inter Europol's third LMP2 win in four years. The No. 4 CrowdStrike Racing by APR car of Laurin Heinrich, George Kurtz and Alex Quinn won LMP2 Pro-Am.
• LMGT3: the No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Ben Keating, Jonny Edgar and Nicky Catsburg, per Crash.net's results and the official WEC site.
• Pole: the ACO's report refers to BMW's pole-sitting challenge, and Wikipedia (secondary) names Dries Vanthoor in the No. 15 BMW M Team WRT car as the pole sitter.

Le Mans is also one leg of the unofficial Triple Crown of Motorsport; the series overview explains it, and North American endurance racing, including the Rolex 24 at Daytona, is on our IMSA page.