Ferrari won a completely crazy 2026 edition of “Lone Star Le Mans”: while the Toyota No. 7 seemed to be heading for victory, a hydraulic problem near the finish disrupted the standings.
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The Ferrari No. 50 of Nicklas Nielsen, Antonio Fuoco, and Miguel Molina took advantage to claim the first win of the Italian brand this season in WEC.
The Scuderia thus consoles itself from its troubles in F1 at Monza, while Alpine returns to the podium as a balm after a less successful Sunday than Saturday in Italy.
Toyota loses everything ten minutes from the finish
The last hour of the race was decisive. The immobilization of a Lexus GT caused the intervention of the safety car and grouped the entire field. At the restart, a little over 45 minutes from the finish, Nyck de Vries was leading with the Toyota No. 7 ahead of Alpine No. 35 of Charles Milesi and Ferrari No. 50 of Nicklas Nielsen. The Dutchman immediately set a very high pace to secure his position. Behind him, Milesi initially held second place before yielding to Nielsen in traffic.
Just as de Vries seemed to have definitely done the hardest part, the scenario abruptly changed. Only ten minutes from the checkered flag, Toyota No. 7 was forced to return to its garage due to a hydraulic problem. A particularly cruel retirement for de Vries and his teammates, who had victory within reach. Nielsen thus inherited the lead and drove Ferrari No. 50 to victory. Along with Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina, the Dane gives Ferrari its first win of the 2026 season.
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Behind, Alpine No. 35 of Charles Milesi, António Félix da Costa, and Ferdinand Habsburg thought they had secured second place. A five-second penalty for an unsafe release ultimately dropped them to third place. The Cadillac No. 38 of Jack Aitken, Sébastien Bourdais, and Earl Bamber thus takes second place.
First podium of the season for Alpine
Despite this penalty, Alpine records its best result of the year with its first podium of the season. The French brand, which will leave the WEC at the end of the 2026 season, showed an encouraging level of performance throughout the Texas weekend. The second A424, No. 36 of Victor Martins, Jules Gounon, and Frédéric Makowiecki, also finished in the top 5.
For the A424, this is the fifth podium in WEC after those obtained at Fuji in 2024, Imola, Spa-Francorchamps, and Fuji in 2025. On the other hand, Peugeot had a quieter race: No. 94 of Loïc Duval, Théo Pourchaire, and Malthe Jakobsen moved up from 12th to tenth place, while No. 93 of Paul di Resta, Stoffel Vandoorne, and Nick Cassidy finished 16th and last among the classified Hypercars.
In the championship standings before the next round at Fuji at the end of September, Toyota leads by 9 points over BMW, whose M-Hybrid V8s were very discreet in Texas, and 26 over Ferrari. The end of the season in the Middle East has been canceled, with the last two rounds moved to Barcelona on October 8 and Monza on November 8.
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