Everything you need to know about the FIA World Endurance Championship

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Rudy Carezzevoli/Getty Images Share articleThe premier category of sports car racing, the FIA World Endurance Championship, embarks on its second round of the 2026 season at the famed Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps in Belgium this weekend. The 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is the final warm-up for the entire WEC grid before the highlight of the season, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, which takes place next month and stands as one of the most coveted and hardest events to win in global motorsport. While Le Mans may be the annual centerpiece, it forms just part of the WEC season that features many of the world’s biggest car brands and drivers with a wealth of success and experience in categories from F1 to IndyCar. Here’s everything you need to know to get up to speed with WEC. The WEC field is split into two classes of car: Hypercar and GT3. Their races take place on the track at the same time despite being incredibly different in their appearance and performance. Hypercar has been the premier category in WEC and at Le Mans since 2021, taking over from LMP1 (Le Mans Prototype 1). Two years later, the category merged with its counterpart in the American IMSA sports car series, LMDh, that would allow cars to compete in both championships if desired. Hypercars are prototype-style, closed cockpit cars that chase the very highest levels of performance permitted in global sports car racing. Unlike F1, which mandates that all teams must use V6 hybrid engines, there is greater freedom for engine design and technical specification in WEC’s Hypercar class. The category features a mix of V6 and V8 hybrids, which lean on electrical energy as a key part of extracting maximum lap time, while there is even a naturally-aspirated — and loud — V12 engine used in the Aston Martin Valkyrie. WEC’s ‘grand tourer’ class is GT3, which has established itself as the most popular GT category across the world in the past decade and replaced the series’ former GTE category in 2024. This class is made up of high-end versions of production-based vehicles. WEC has a system within its technical rules called ‘Balance of Performance.’ This primarily focuses on weight and power adjustments for cars that are enforced through the regular analysis of data by series officials, and is intended to encourage performance parity within both classes despite the differing specifications of cars. Despite being on the track altogether, the Hypercar and GT3 categories are very much focused on their own races. In the opening round of the WEC season at Imola, the winning GT3 car finished 19 laps down on the victorious Hypercar. WEC features some of the most iconic names in the automotive world, all eager to prove their sports cars are the very best. Toyota is the only manufacturer to have raced in the top category of WEC since the championship started in 2012. It has won seven drivers’ championships and five 24 Hours of Le Mans in that time, making it the most successful brand in the series’ history. It has two cars on the grid at Spa. But the reigning champion team is Ferrari. Unlike its counterpart team in F1, which is in the midst of a title drought going back to 2008, success is fresh to the Prancing Horse’s sports car operation. James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi won last year’s drivers’ title for Ferrari, while Robert Kubica, Phil Hanson and Yifei Ye took victory at Le Mans for Ferrari’s satellite AF Corse team. F1 fans will be familiar with some other teams and manufacturers in Hypercar. Aston Martin is involved with a racing version of its Adrian Newey-designed Valkyrie sports car, while Alpine also has two cars on the grid. Cadillac, now F1’s newest team, has competed in WEC since 2023 with its V-Series.R car that is raced by the UK-based Jota Sport team. Two other major car brands, BMW and Peugeot, also race in Hypercar, along with Genesis, the luxury arm of Hyundai, which debuted this year. From 2027, McLaren and Ford will join the Hypercar grid. The GT3 category features customer teams who have partnership with manufacturers to race their sports cars. Nine manufacturers enjoy presence in the class: McLaren, Ferrari, Aston Martin, BMW, Chevrolet, Mercedes, Ford, Lexus and Porsche. All but two of the 35 cars entered for Spa — 17 in Hypercar, 18 in GT3 — will have three drivers sharing duties across the six-hour race distance. As the premier category of sports car racing, WEC features an array of big-name drivers, especially in Hypercar. many of whom will be familiar to recent F1 fans. Kevin Magnussen, Nyck de Vries, Logan Sargeant and Antonio Giovinazzi all moved into WEC after losing their F1 seats in recent years, while other former grand prix racers, such as Sebastien Buemi and Robert Kubica, have established fine careers in sports car racing since leaving F1. Buemi holds the record among the active racers in the WEC for the most 24 Hours of Le Mans victories, scoring four across his career. His Toyota teammate, Brendon Hartley, and Genesis driver Andre Lotterer have both won the French endurance classic three times. The Hypercar category typically features drivers who have contracts with certain manufacturers, known as ‘factory drivers,’ and is where the biggest names in sports car racing can typically be found. WEC is subject to the FIA’s Driver Categorization rules, which gives ratings to drivers depending on their experience and success in other categories. There are four ratings: platinum, gold, silver and bronze. Platinum drivers are those who have excelled in the very highest levels of racing — Max Verstappen got an automatic platinum rating for his sports car escapades — while bronze ratings are given to any driver gaining their licence after turning 30. They are often semi-professional or ‘gentleman drivers’ who in some cases help fund part of the team. The categorization rules are in place to ensure both close competition and safety on the race track. Bronze drivers are not allowed to compete in Hypercar, but in GT3, it is mandatory for each car to have at least one bronze in its line-up. Teams will typically try to give their more experienced and higher-rated drivers more time in the cockpit through a race while also meeting the rules surrounding minimum stints for all their drivers. Like an F1 race weekend, the schedule is divided into practice, qualifying and the race across three days. As the Spa race traditionally is held on Saturday, two 90-minute practice sessions take place on Thursday before a final one-hour practice on Friday. Qualifying is then split into the separate Hypercar and GT3 classes. Each category has an initial 12-minute session before the top 10 cars advance to ‘Hyperpole’ which decides pole position and sets the rest of the grid. The races in WEC take place over a range of distances, going from six hours all the way up to 24 hours for Le Mans. Driver swaps are routine parts of pit stops, which will also allow teams to make tire changes and refuel the car, acting as key strategic variables. There is always a trade-off that teams need to handle. Topping the car up with less fuel will mean the car is lighter and makes for a quicker pit stop that could help gain track position, yet it may require another visit to the pits and loss of time. The tires are longer-lasting than those used in F1, meaning teams will sometimes opt against changing rubber when a car comes into the pits to ensure a quicker service, with the knowledge they could be slower than those using a fresh set. Given the big difference in speed and performance between the Hypercar and GT3 classes, negotiating traffic is also a significant challenge for the drivers. GT3s will regularly be shown blue flags, requiring them to allow the fastest Hypercars past, while those in the top category will also try and time their passes on the slower cars at the most advantageous parts of the circuit to lose as little time as possible. The final big consideration for teams in races of such distances is reliability. The level of competition is so high that WEC races, even those lasting 24 hours, are more akin to flat-out sprints, meaning the cars are all pushed to their limits and a single moment can undo a perfect race. A famous, heartbreaking example came at Le Mans in 2015 when Toyota’s leading car broke down while leading on the very last lap, handing the win to Porsche. The WEC calendar is only eight races long, but with race distances of six hours, eight hours, 10 hours and 24 hours, it adds up to well over a full F1 season’s worth of on-track competition. It also visits many of the greatest race tracks in the world. The season started at Imola in Italy last month before visiting Spa and Le Mans. It will then race at Interlagos, Brazil’s F1 track, in July before a visit to the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas, and Fuji Speedway in Japan through September. Two races are scheduled in Qatar and Bahrain to then close out the season. 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship calendar Spot the pattern. Connect the terms Find the hidden link between sports terms