Toyota reclaim Le Mans crown to end Ferrari streak

Toyota survived a late battle with BMW and Cadillac to win the Le Mans 24 Hours and end Ferrari's recent domination of the famous race.

Former Formula 1 driver Kamui Kobayashi held on to cross the line in the number seven Toyota TR010, 10.9 seconds ahead of the Netherlands' Robin Frijns in the BMW M Hybrid V8, with Switzerland's Sebastien Buemi a further 9.5 seconds back in the number eight Toyota.

Britain's Mike Conway and Dutchman Nyck de Vries completed the three-driver line-up with Kobayashi for the number seven Toyota, with 42-year-old Conway claiming his second victory at Le Mans for the Japanese team.

Ex-F1 racer Will Stevens ended the race 11.9 seconds behind Buemi in fourth after earlier promise in the morning session, just missing out on the podium in the American Cadillac V-Series R car run by the British Hertz Team Jota.

Ferrari's three 499Ps have ruled the legendary event, which takes place at Circuit de la Sarthe in north west France, by winning the past three events since returning to the sport in 2023 - but they had a ragged race.

The number 51 which includes Briton James Calado finished more than two minutes behind the winners, with last year's winner, the number 83 driven by Poland's ex-F1 driver Robert Kubica, further down in seventh.

Both the number 50 - which retired - and 51 Ferraris had early contact with cars further down the field, in a race in which the hypercar class' controversial 'balance of performance' limiting measurement was mentioned by some drivers after teams including Ferrari struggled to keep pace.

Toyota brought a minor upgrade to their car - along with rebranding for 2026 - and it appeared to help as the team claimed their sixth Le Mans victory.

Porsche have the most victories in Le Mans' top class with 19.

Toyota are the only marque who had stayed through leaner times in sportscars, last winning Le Mans between 2018-2022 against far fewer competitors.

"Finally we bring in a new car and that's made it happen," said Japanese driver Kobayashi.

"Mr Toyoda-san [Toyota chairman Akio Toyoda] has been supporting big time - finally we're back on top."

The series has rediscovered its popularity since the introduction of new hypercar rules for the top class of cars in 2021 - with manufacturers including Ferrari, Peugeot, Alpine, BMW, Toyota, Genesis, Cadillac and Aston Martin.

Le Mans - part of the World Endurance Championship (WEC) series - is a sellout each year as about 350,000 fans flock to Circuit de la Sarthe, while other races such as the Six Hours of Spa are growing in popularity.

Several former F1 drivers take part in the WEC, including the highly rated Stevens, who drove for Caterham and Marussia across 2014 and 2015.

Britain's former W Series champion Jamie Chadwick made history by becoming the first female to drive a hypercar at Le Mans during a test day before the race as she took the wheel of the new Genesis entry.

Reserve driver Chadwick saw her team-mates finish 13th in the number 19 car on its debut after the sister number 17 car retired with suspension failure.

In only the team's second year following a return to the top class of racing in the WEC, Aston Martin's beautiful Valkyrie was far more competitive and reliable - the 007 car driven by Britons Harry Tincknell, Tom Gamble and Ross Gunn finished eighth, with number 009 car 14th.

Next year brings the reintroduction of a six-hour WEC race at Silverstone as both Ford and McLaren enter the series in the hypercar category - the former rekindling their legendary rivalry with Ferrari.

Four-time F1 world champion Max Verstappen is rumoured to be keen to compete in Le Mans following his participation in GT racing this year.

In the lower LMP2 category, in which the British company Gibson supplies the engines, Polish team Inter Europol retained their title with a one-two finish.

France's top female talent Doriane Pin ran high up in LMP2 earlier in the race but her Duqueine team retired with a few hours remaining following brake failure.

In the LMGT3 class, American manufacturer Corvette were victorious through Ben Keating, Nicky Catsburg and Britain's Jonny Edgar.

The sister Corvette, run by Racing Team Turkey by TF Sport, was sixth through Northern Ireland's Charlie Eastwood, who won Le Mans in 2020, Ireland's Peter Dempsey and Turkey's Salih Yoluc.

But there was heartbreak for Northern Ireland's Dan Harper on his Le Mans debut as he was forced to retire inside the final four hours of the race after a gearbox issue on his BMW.