Ferrari’s Dominance Faces Test in 2026 WEC Season
· Yahoo Sports
The Hypercar grid of the World Endurance Championship will have a decidedly different look in what could be a crackerjack 2026 season despite Porsche taking a hiatus.
Under a schedule revised by the war in the Middle East, this year’s season begins in Italy, where Imola will host a six-hour on Sunday, April 19.
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Although newcomer Genesis has created some waves, all eyes will be on Ferrari in the opener after its 499P failed the WEC’s aerodynamic re-homologation over the winter. No longer able to use the Sauber wind tunnel in Switzerland, the WEC’s switch to the WindShear tunnel in North Carolina required all manufacturers to undergo new testing. In the moving ground plane tunnel of WindShear, the Ferrari built to the LMH rulebook was found to be out of compliance with the drag/downforce window required of all manufacturers.
Entered by the AF Corse team, Ferrari won handily at Imola last year. It has dominated Le Mans for three years and won both the driver and manufacturer championships in 2026. But it faces the coming season with decidedly different aerodynamics.
Genesis GMR-001.Genesis“Although the changes are limited in scope, they have a significant impact on the car’s behavior,” said Ferdinando Cannizzo, head of endurance race cars at Ferrari. “To bring aerodynamic performance back within the new performance window, we focused our development on specific areas of the 499P, primarily the underbody, to meet the regulation-defined drag and downforce targets. The new window required a recalibration of the aerodynamic mapping. As a result, we now need to rediscover the balance that has always defined the 499P.”
During the three years when the WEC was homologating cars at the Sauber wind tunnel, the Ferrari apparently enjoyed better options when it came to drag and downforce than competitors. Porsche officials were adamant that Ferrari had an advantage at Le Mans last year, despite Balance of Performance, because the No. 83 “privateer” AF Corse entry spent so much time in the pits yet still won.
But given the 499P’s seminal design and the stability of AF Corse and the driver lineup, beating the Italian squad will continue to be a challenge. Ferrari’s design has enabled it to use only one “joker” update so far, which was an improvement to brake cooling in 2024. This year’s modification to come into compliance on drag/downforce was not counted as one of Ferrari’s five jokers.
Cadillac and BMW underwent significant aerodynamic changes during the winter. Sleeping giant Toyota, meanwhile, is re-making its WEC effort with the newly renamed TR010 Hybrid chassis and revised aerodynamics on the heels of a one-two sweep at last year’s finale in Bahrain, which moved it up to second in the manufacturers’ chase. The TR010 has a revised front and rear, which is said to provide better stability to the handling as well as better cues to the Japanese company’s street vehicles.
Alpine and Peugeot, which benefitted from development and the Balance of Performance in 2025, enter the new year with ambitions of repeating last year’s competitive form at season’s end at Fuji, where Alpine won the race and Peugeot was in contention. Cadillac and the Jota team look to add to their victory at Sao Paulo with the V-Series.R, known for its downforce, but now a bit slicker with its new rear.
BMW M Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 at the Circuit of The Americas last September.James Moy Photography - Getty ImagesCould this be the year that BMW, under the umbrella of a single team on both sides of the Atlantic, puts together a winning effort by the WRT squad in the WEC? The Aston Martin Valkyrie and the THOR team enter the year after a full season of competition under traditional V12 power and a runner-up finish at last year’s Petit Le Mans.
The newcomer on the grid, Genesis is a wildcard, although the team and its manager, Cyril Abiteboul, are downplaying expectations. The GMR-001 has been put through more than 15,500 miles of testing, led by veteran drivers Pipo Derani, a former champion with Cadillac, and André Lotterer, a former champion with Porsche.
With a V8 turbo engine based on Hyundai Motorsport’s in-line, four-cylinder block from the FIA World Rally Championship, the first LMDh chassis completed by ORECA rolled out of Genesis Magma Racing’s facility for testing on the Circuit Paul Ricard in August.
“We set some high mileage targets for various components and we have achieved most of them, but more importantly, the mileage has been productive,” said Justin Taylor, the team’s chief engineer. “As well as endurance, we also focused on making sure we could run consistently to our full potential within the FIA WEC technical regulations.
“Our first goal this season is to finish races without problems or penalties. Then, we can start to look to move forward in the Hypercar class, step-by-step – Hyperpole appearances, achieving finishes on the lead lap and challenging for top five results on pace.”
Imola Notebook
Jota will use two drivers per Cadillac at Imola. Jack Aitken has a conflict with the Long Beach race of the IMSA WeatherTech Championship, leaving the No. 38 entry to Earl Bamber and Sebastian Bourdais. Alex Lynn will miss the season’s first two races because of surgery for a pre-existing neck injury, leaving the No. 12 entry to Will Stevens and Norman Nato.
Logan Sargent (No. 88) and Sebastian Priaulx (No. 77) are preparing for next year’s campaign in Ford’s LMDh prototype entry by driving this year in the WEC on board the Mustang GT3s of Proton Competition. Along with Mike Rockenfeller, they are also competing in Proton’s LMP2 entry in the European Le Mans Series, where Ford Racing is laying the groundwork for its Hypercar entry with a yet to be named chassis powered by a Coyote V8.
A broken elbow suffered in a training incident by Texas car dealer Ben Keating has sundered his LMGT3 title hopes. The Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R team of TF Sport will substitute Blake McDonald as its bronze driver for the first two WEC races.
American Ryan Hardwick did not return to defend his 2025 LMGT3 title and instead is pursuing the Michelin Endurance Cup with Manthey Racing in IMSA.