Five points, four rounds: the WEC title fight reaches Texas

The World Endurance Championship comes back from its summer break with the closest Hypercar title fight in years. Five points separate Toyota from BMW, there are four rounds left, and Ferrari is close enough that nobody is counting it out.

The Lone Star Le Mans runs at the Circuit of The Americas on 4-6 September: six hours, 5.513 kilometres a lap, round five of eight. If you want the basics on Hypercar and how endurance racing works, our RNT Explains page on the Hypercar class cover them.

How a 36-point lead became five

Toyota still leads the Hypercar manufacturers’ standings, but only just. Before Brazil the margin was 36 points. After Brazil it is five.

That swing happened in a single afternoon at Interlagos, which tells you how little a lead is worth in this championship.

BMW won it the hard way. Kevin Magnussen, Raffaele Marciello and Dries Vanthoor led most of the race in the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid before Vanthoor ran wide in the penultimate hour and handed the net lead to James Calado in the No. 51 Ferrari 499P. BMW had more fuel in the car, took a shorter final stop, and came back to win by 2.2 seconds.

Toyota, meanwhile, scored nothing. Less than a month after its sixth Le Mans win, the No. 7 GR010 Hybrid of Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Nyck de Vries finished 12th, short on pace and carrying two penalties.

In the drivers’ standings, Rene Rast and Robin Frijns are now level at the top on 75 points.

So three manufacturers arrive in Texas with a real case. Toyota needs a response. BMW needs to show Interlagos was not a one-off. And Ferrari, which has been quietly close all season, needs one weekend to go its way.

Cadillac’s home race

COTA is the only American round on the calendar, which makes it Cadillac’s home race, and the team arrives in better shape than at any point this year.

Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA took its first podium of the season in Brazil, the No. 12 finishing third and the No. 38 fourth. Will Stevens had put the No. 12 on pole earlier that weekend.

There is one change for Texas. Alex Lynn is still recovering from surgery and is expected back at Barcelona, so Ricky Taylor joins Norman Nato and Stevens in the No. 12. Taylor knows COTA as well as anyone in the field, and both Earl Bamber and Nato have won here before.

We looked at what that home weekend means for the team in more detail in our Cadillac preview.

LMGT3 is closer than the headline suggests

The other championship is worth following too. TF Sport leads LMGT3 by 27 points from The Bend Manthey, which sounds comfortable and is not, with four races still to run.

COTA suits close racing in this class. The long back straight and the heavy braking into Turn 12 create overtaking chances that tighter circuits do not, and LMGT3 cars spend six hours working through traffic while the Hypercars come past.

How to watch

Friday 4 September: Free Practice 1, then Free Practice 2 in the evening
Saturday 5 September: Free Practice 3 and Qualifying
Sunday 6 September: the six-hour race

In most of Europe the championship is on Eurosport. In North America it is on MotorTrend and HBO+. The series also has its own platform, FIAWEC+, available as a website and an app, with live timing from official timekeeper Al Kamel.

One thing to know: as at every round except Le Mans, the two Friday practice sessions are not broadcast live. You can follow them through the official timing instead.

After Austin

From Texas the season goes to Fuji, then finishes with Barcelona and Monza. There are 104 points still available.

Five points between first and second with four rounds to go is the kind of gap that means nothing and everything at once. One bad afternoon, like Toyota’s in Brazil, erases it. One clean weekend restores it.

Austin is the first real test of who is built for a title run and who has been flattered by circumstances so far.

Published 3 September 2026.