Ranking the WEC’s 10 greatest races

The 2025 6 Hours of Fuji will mark the World Endurance Championship’s 100th race since it returned in 2012.

WEC has produced plenty of drama across the past 13 years, making it hard to compile the championship’s 10 greatest races.

But Autosport has had a crack, so here it is…

10. 2020 Le Mans 24 Hours 

Aston ‘brakes’ Ferrari’s challenge

Aston-Ferrari battle was settled when Lynn/Martin/Tincknell car opted not to change its brakes

Photo by: Sam Bloxham / LAT Images via Getty Images

This one was Aston Martin versus Ferrari all the way. First, two of the Italian cars going at it hammer and tongs with the British machine for GTE Pro honours. And then just the one. From the moment it became a two-horse race less a third of the way through, there were no fewer than 27 lead changes.

The Prodrive-run Aston Martin Vantage GTE shared by Alex Lynn, Maxime Martin and Harry Tincknell ultimately prevailed in a race that turned on what happened in the pits. Or rather didn’t.

The factory AF Corse-run Ferrari 488 GTE shared by James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Daniel Serra changed brakes in hour 18. The Italian manufacturer was waiting for the Aston to do the same - putting on new discs and pads was de rigueur in GTE Pro – so the battle could resume. But the Aston stuck to its game plan to go through without a change and hung on to win by a minute and a half.

9. 2022 Monza 6 Hours

Alpine scales the heights  

Vaxiere’s Alpine got past the #8 Toyota at the fourth attempt

Photo by: Getty Images

Matthieu Vaxiere repeatedly got his Alpine alongside Ryo Hirakawa’s Toyota out of Parabolica. Yet he couldn’t make it stick into the Rettifilo chicane. Then, at the fourth time of asking, he was past. And in less than a lap he was on the tail of the leader, Kamui Kobayashi in the other GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar.

Once again the lighter, nimbler grandfathered LMP1 Alpine-Gibson A480 got the better run out of the final corner. This time there was contact between the two cars when Kobayashi infinitesimally moved over on Vaxiviere. The Toyota’s right rear tyre exploded, sending the car across the chicane and on to the pits. The race effectively was won for Vaxiviere and team-mates Nicolas Lapierre and Andre Negrao with an hour to go. 

The Alpine had battled with the Toyotas throughout the race, the final margin of victory over the car Hirakawa drove with Sebastien Buemi and Brendon Hartley just 2.7s. It would have been different, however, had the solo Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 LMH not gone out with turbo failure. It was the fastest car on the day.

8. 2017 Le Mans 24 Hours 

An hour lost, a victory gained

Bibendum photobombs Hartley/Bamber/Bernhard celebration selfie

Photo by: Getty Images

The final margin between the top two in LMP1 at the finish might have been nine laps, massive by contemporary standards, but few editions of Le Mans have encompassed quite so much drama as the 2017 race. An LMP2 car almost won for goodness’ sake! 

LMP1 was now a two-horse race after Audi’s departure at the end of 2016, but Porsche and Toyota battled hard in what turned out to be an old school Le Mans. The winning Porsche 919 Hybrid shared by Hartley, Earl Bamber and Timo Bernhard was only one of two P1 cars standing at the finish - and lost 65 minutes to a change of hybrid motor.

That explained its relentless pursuit of the Jota-run Jackie Chan DC Racing ORECA-Gibson 07 shared by Oliver Jarvis, Thomas Laurent and Ho-Pin Tung for the victory over the final hours. It wasn’t until the very end of the penultimate hour that Bernhard caught Tung to save the collective blushes of the LMP1 contingent. 

“We regrouped and the decision was made to go flat out to the end and see what happened,” remembers Hartley. “We had nothing to lose and went all in: it was quali lap after quali lap.”

That mentality didn’t change when the sister car shared by  Andre Lotterer, Nick Tandy and Neel Jani stopped with engine failure in the 21st hour, handing the lead to the P2 ORECA. It was still far from clear that the delayed 919 could make up the lost ground: Porsche’s calculations at one point suggested it would catch the P2 upstart on the final lap!

Yet this was a race that Toyota should have won with the TS050 HYBRID. It was the fastest car, but the Japanese manufacturer found a new way to lose victory as it continued its odyssey to win the Big One. 

The car shared by Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Lapierre was controlling the race when the first named was brought into the pits during the 10th hour under the safety car. He encountered a red light at the end of pitlane, only to be waved through by an orange-clad figure who Kobayashi presumed was a marshal. In fact, it was LMP2 racer Vincent Capillaire offering encouragement to the race leader. The Toyota driver was immediately told of his mistake, hit the brakes at the exit and then tried to get going using the clutch rather than the hybrid motors, the usual way for the car to leave the pits. The result was a frazzled clutch and retirement. 

Le Mans 2017 really did have it all. And we haven’t even talked about Kobayashi’s record breaking lap in qualifying!

7. 2025 Spa 6 Hours  

Pitlane ploy sets up Ferrari 1-2

Pier Guidi takes a moment to savour the win, ensured by earlier pitlane manoeuvres

Photo by: Gabriele Lanzo / Alessio Morgese / NurPhoto via Getty Images

Ferrari was still in the ascendancy as it completed a hat-trick of victories in 2025 at Spa. Just about. But the two blood red cars put on a show and were separated by just four seconds, with the chasing Alpine LMDh finishing right behind. The top three were separated by a tad over five seconds at the chequered flag. And BMW was in the hunt, too! 

It was an intriguing race, and not just because the opposition was nipping at Ferrari’s heels. The two red cars chose different strategies over the final hour: Alessandro Pier Guidi in the 499P LMH shared with James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi opted to push and make a splash. Nicklas Nielsen went for extreme fuel saving in the sister car co-driven by Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina. No one was sure which was the fastest way, Ferrari’s engineering boffins included. 

Pier Guidi was able to edge out a 39s advantage. That was four more than the 35 he needed to get in and out of the pits ahead. 

The most significant strategy call of the race came earlier, however. The two Ferraris, running 1-2, stopped under the safety car and swapped positions in the pitlane so that Giovinazzi could reach his stall nearest pit-out first. There was nothing in the rules to preclude it. If there was, the resulting kerfuffle would almost certainly have ruled out a Ferrari 1-2.

6. 2021 Le Mans 24 Hours 

Peak last-lap drama for LMP2 triumph

Flag-waving official narrowly avoids a painful encounter with WRT’s LMP2 victor

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images

Robin Frijns, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi were deserving LMP2 winners aboard their WRT entry: they’d led 220 of the 363 laps completed in class. But they ended up claiming the victory after what must be the most dramatic last lap in Le Mans history. 

Victory looked set to go to the sister WRT ORECA-Gibson 07 driven by Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Louis Deletraz. It had just started its last lap when Ye coasted to a halt after the Dunlop Bridge with a broken throttle sensor.

That put Frijns in front again, but there was a problem. His car had dropped back after the airjacks failed and WRT’s use of inflatable pillows to raise the car on pitlane had damaged the rear diffuser. The Dutchman was struggling and Tom Blomqvist in the Jota ORECA co-driven by Stoffel Vandoorne and Sean Gelael was closing fast. 

The pair was weaving between slowing cars over the final portion of that last lap, Frijns even clipping a GTE Am car on the start-finish straight. He also came close to  hitting the official standing on the track, as per Le Mans tradition, waving the chequered flag. And the margin of victory in WRT’s favour? Seven tenths of a second!

5. 2024 Bahrain 8 Hours 

Win or bust for brilliant Buemi

Buemi knows he’s delivered the drive of a lifetime

Photo by: James Moy Photography via Getty Images

With 90 minutes to go, Toyota’s hopes looked all but gone. Hopes of victory as well as stealing the manufacturers’ crown from under Porsche’s nose at last season’s Bahrain finale. One GR010 Hybrid had retired, the other was running 10th. 

Yet somehow Buemi was able to pull out a performance that beggared belief. What had looked like an unlikely victory for the Swiss and team-mates Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa sealed the all-important silverware at the end of a difficult season for the long-time kings of the WEC. 

Buemi and Toyota got a bit of help from the safety car, but in the Hypercar era of closely matched machinery, there was still a lot of overtaking to do. In the pits and on the track, as it turned out. The star of the day impressed, but Toyota was as tactically on point as usual. 

The woes for the car that eventually came out on top started early when Buemi was punted into a spin by an LMGT3. Down in the pack as a result, he struggled on the Michelin medium-compound tyre. Toyota took the pain on tyres mid-race to ensure that Buemi had six fresh ones for the run to the flag. Its strategy then allowed him to exploit them: he stopped early, splitting the final stint into two equal parts, to be able to run in clean air. 

The plan came together, and then some. Buemi ended up 27s to the good from the Ferrari that crossed the line second (though was subsequently penalised). It was win or bust, reckoned Buemi. 

“I was thinking I might be able to pass two or three cars, not to overtake everyone,” said Buemi. “But I thought, f*** it - I was going to overtake or DNF.”

4. 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours 

Toyota fightback just falls short

#8 Toyota’s Sunday morning charge ended in heartbreak

Photo by: Clive Rose / Getty Images

Ferrari had the faster car on the Le Mans debut of its new 499P at the centenary edition of the big race. A late Balance of Performance change took away the advantage Toyota had enjoyed on the way to victory in the opening three rounds of the 2023 WEC. Yet the Japanese manufacturer might still have prevailed. 

It looked done and dusted in Ferrari’s favour late on Sunday morning, but then the conditions came to Toyota. The only GR010 still going, the Sebastien Buemi/Brendon Hartley/Ryo Hirakawa car suddenly came alive. Meanwhile, the Ferrari out front, the car driven by Calado, Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi, lost time to an electronic glitch. 

Hartley started to make inroads into the Ferrari’s lead. Fifteen seconds had become nine when he handed over to Hirakawa. Four laps later, the battle was over. The young Japanese spun at Arnage, caught out by the brake-bias settings.

The Ferrari would be hit by the electronic issue, a second reboot required, at its final pitstop. The final margin between 499P and GR010 was just 81s.

“I don’t think we had the pace on the Ferrari, but we put on a massive fight in the morning,” reckons Hartley. “We were catching them. We had them on the ropes… then the heartbreak with the little crash from Ryo.”

3. 2015 Silverstone 6 Hours 

Lotterer’s ‘cheeky’ move makes it stick 

Audi and Porsche’s long-running dice was settled in the former’s favour

Photo by: Getty Images

Time after time, the Audi made it past the Porsche at the Village complex, only for the German car to reverse the positions down the Wellington Straight. The 919, which had eight megajoules of hybrid punch compared with the 4MJ of the R18 e-tron quattro, was the quicker car on acceleration. But the Audi was faster around the lap courtesy of the higher levels of downforce it was running: so early in the season Porsche’s eyes were firmly on Le Mans. 

The battle between Porsche driver Jani and Audi’s Marcel Fassler resumed after Romain Dumas and Lotterer took over their respective mounts at halfway. Very briefly. Lotterer arrived on Dumas’s tail a couple of laps out of pits and pounced at Village. He hung him out wide so the Porsche driver had to get off the gas. That ensured the Audi was still ahead at the end of the Wellington Straight. 

"It was a little bit cheeky, but I had to make him lose momentum," remembers Lotterer. "I knew that if I was still in front by the time we got to Copse and then Becketts, I would be away." 

And away Lotterer was in the car in which Benoit Treluyer completed the winning line-up. The two Toyota TS040 HYBRIDs were ahead at the time courtesy of foregoing tyres at the round of pitstops just passed. But the German’s move was the defining moment of the race, and, anyway, he caught and passed them both before it was time to return to the pits. 

It was still a close-run thing, however. Lotterer and co ended up just under five seconds ahead of the Porsche trio of Jani, Dumas and Marc Lieb. That was closer than it should have been, the result of a late stop-go for Fassler after he’d exceeded track limits lapping a GTE car.

2. 2021 Bahrain 8 Hours 

Clash can’t take shine off super scrap

#92 Porsche lost out in controversial incident during closing stages

Photo by: Porsche Motorsport

The 2021 WEC seasonal finale will always be remembered for the late clash between Michael Christensen and Pier Guidi as they battled for the GTE Pro class honours. And the controversy that followed. But that’s to overlook the fantastic scrap between their respective mounts over the previous seven hours. 

The winning Ferrari 488 GTE Evo Pier Guidi shared with Calado and the Porsche 911 RSR in which Christensen had joined full-season drivers Kevin Estre and Neel Jani raced hard right through what was a straight fight for the championship: Estre’s pole had brought them level on points. 

There were never more than a smattering of seconds between the two cars over the first half of the race. Ferrari then gained the upper hand. But a creative strategy on the part of the Manthey team brought the Porsche back into it.

It shortened its stints and then strapped Estre in early under a Full Course Yellow late in the fifth hour. On fresh tyres, the Frenchman clawed back an 11s deficit to Calado and retook the lead. But there was a price to pay. Christensen had to see out the final 70 minutes on a mixed and matched set of used tyres.

Pier Guidi, with fresh Michelins on the rear, arrived on his tail in double-quick time. But that’s where he stayed for lap after lap as the Dane didn’t put a foot wrong to hold on. The mistake ultimately came from Pier Guidi with 11 minutes left: he ran into the back of the Porsche, spinning it around as an LMP2 car passed. 

Race control almost immediately demanded Pier Guidi give the position back, only for the Porsche to duck into the pits for a splash of fuel as the Ferrari was slowing. The call was then rescinded and Pier Guidi emerged from his stop with a two-second lead. Christensen, his tyres shot, had nothing for him. 

The race was as thrilling as it was controversial, and that’s not counting the BoP shenanigans over the back-to-back Bahrain races that closed out the 2021 WEC. The Battle of Bahrain only came to an end in the middle of the following week when Porsche abandoned its bid to overturn the result.

1. 2016 Fuji 6 Hours 

Toyota’s last-gasp hometown heist

Sarrazin, Kobayashi and Conway celebrate Toyota’s victory at home

Photo by: Jakob Ebrey / LAT Images via Getty Images

Audi claimed the pole and led most laps, while Porsche was its closest challenger for the majority of the way, yet it was Toyota that came out of a thrilling three-way fight with a home town win. The Japanese manufacturer had been knocking on victory’s door for a while with the TS050, but it delved deep into its tactical toolbox to break the car’s victory duck. 

Going into the final phase of the race the Toyota shared by Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Stephane Sarrazin was running back in third behind the Audi R18 driven by Lucas di Grassi, Loic Duval and Oliver Jarvis and the Porsche 919 of Mark Webber, Hartley and Bernhard. That’s when Toyota opted to push the boat out on strategy. 

“We had Stephane in the car and in his second stint he started to lose contact with the two cars in front,” recalls then Toyota Motorsport GmbH technical director Pascal Vasselon. “So we decided to pit him early and give two long stints to Kamui, who is always exceptional at Fuji.”

Shortfuelling the Toyota was enough for it to overhaul the Porsche that Bernhard had just given to Hartley. At the final round of stops, Kobayashi continued on the same set of Michelins whereas the Audi ahead in the hands of Duval got fresh rubber. Suddenly the Toyota was in the lead, by just over 10s. Kobayashi, when told he wasn’t going to get new tyres, wasn’t convinced that that kind of advantage would be enough. 

But enough it was. Kobayashi hung on to claim the victory by just 1.4s from the closing Audi. “Most of the exceptional races are the ones where the winner is unexpected,” says Vasselon. “We were not the fastest, that was the Duval Audi, but with excellent pitstops and good tyre degradation we were able to win.”

And Toyota was back to its winning ways.

This article is one of many in the monthly Autosport magazine. For more premium content, take a look at the October 2025 issue and subscribe today. 

The #6 Toyota beat Audi and Porsche, Kobayashi holding on at the finish

Photo by: Toyota Racing