TOYOTA RACING back on track in Brazil

TOYOTA RACING returned to the track for the first time since its Le Mans 24 Hours victory when free practice got underway for the 6 Hours of São Paulo.

The team’s sixth win at Le Mans extended its lead in the manufacturers’ World Championship and it will defend that advantage at the Autódromo José Carlos Pace – better known as Interlagos – which hosts round four of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).

Two 90-minute free practice sessions gave engineers and drivers a first opportunity to adjust the TR010 HYBRIDs for the 4.309km, anti-clockwise track, notable for its elevation changes and tight, twisty layout. A challenging day leaves the team with work to do to extract more performance from its cars.

Le Mans winners and World Championship leaders Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries were 14th fastest in the #7 TR010 HYBRID. Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa, who finished third at La Sarthe, ended the day 15th in their #8 TR010 HYBRID.

First practice began late on a sunny morning, with temperatures around 25°C. Both cars began a busy programme of mechanical and aerodynamic set-up and control setting adjustments, as well as analysing both compounds of Michelin tyres. Mike and Brendon set the best laps for their respective cars.

In the afternoon, the team continued its work in similar weather conditions. Both cars completed an incident-free second session but were slightly behind their Hypercar rivals at the end of a tough day of free practice. Kamui and Ryō recorded the fastest times in their cars.  

After two busy sessions, the team’s engineers will now analyse the data and work closely with the drivers with the target of improving the balance and performance of the TR010 HYBRIDs prior to the final, one-hour practice session on Saturday morning.

Qualifying takes place on Saturday afternoon (3.10pm local time, 8.10pm CEST) to set the grid for Sunday’s race, which begins at 11.30am local time (4.30pm CEST).

Quotes:

Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7): “We were generally struggling in terms of pace, and the feeling in the car wasn’t great. We couldn’t get into a good rhythm. We need to analyse everything that's going on in the car. We will work on it tonight and try to figure out how to improve.”

Mike Conway (Driver, car #7): “We didn’t look so competitive today and we're still trying to find a good balance with the car. There are some areas we can improve, so we will work hard with the engineers to find improvements before qualifying. We will do our best, so let’s see how it develops over the weekend.”

Nyck de Vries (Driver, car #7): “It's nice to be in Brazil again, but it looks like we are struggling a little bit. Obviously, we are still exploring different set-up directions and seeing how we could extract a little bit more performance. It has been challenging so far but we’ll keep pushing.”

Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car #8): “I’m happy to be back in São Paulo but it’s been quite a difficult day. We struggled a bit in terms of pace and we’re clearly on the back foot a bit. We now have a lot of data – also on both tyre compounds – so we will work very hard to try to improve. On the other hand, the forecast is for a wet Sunday, which would completely change the picture.”

Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8): “We tried quite a few different things between our two cars, but right now it looks like it's going to be a tough weekend. It looks like there could be rain on Sunday and that might be good news for us. It was tough going in the dry today, so maybe the weather can help us. But we’ll keep working on it and fighting for every position in qualifying and the race.”

Ryō Hirakawa (Driver, car #8): “It's been a tough day. We tried to assess the tyres and work out which compound is better for the race. We have a different car compared to last year here, so we also worked on optimising the set-up. We went through the programme quite smoothly but we’re missing lap time. There’s a lot of work to do tonight and hopefully we can find some lap time for qualifying.”

For full results, please visit https://fiawec.alkamelsystems.com

Click here to access the 2026 TOYOTA RACING WEC press kit. Click here to download rights-free video material of the TR010 HYBRID.