As Motorsport.com reports, the Hypercar field is walking blind into uncharted territory this weekend, and Toyota is already convinced its championship rivals hold a very real upper hand. The World Endurance Championship is heading to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the very first time outside of an old Prologue test ahead of the 2019/20 season. That 4.56km layout on the edge of Spain's second biggest city is a complete unknown for most of the grid, but not for everyone.
While the calendar shift brings a pair of six-hour races in Europe to close out the 2026 season—following necessary cancellations in Qatar and Bahrain due to the war in West Asia—some squads managed to get ahead of the game. On 27 August, BMW, Cadillac and Genesis secured the track for a private test, running their LMDh prototypes over the full grand prix circuit. Toyota, caught with logistics already tied up in Brazil ahead of the Austin rounds, simply could not make the trip.
I do think it's slightly suboptimal that we know that our competition has had the chance to run at those tracks and somehow we haven't,
That logistical headache left the Japanese manufacturer scrambling. Toyota technical director David Floury admitted the team is on the back foot, stating they will have to rely heavily on simulator work and maximizing free practice sessions. "For sure, they should have a performance advantage," Floury said.
It is a sentiment shared inside the garage. Nyck de Vries, winner of this year's Le Mans 24 Hours alongside Mike Conway and Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 Toyota TR010 Hybrid, pointed out that the team's rivals have enjoyed crucial track time at both Barcelona and the returning Monza finale. "I do think it's slightly suboptimal that we know that our competition has had the chance to run at those tracks and somehow we haven't," de Vries noted.
Naturally, the competition sees things a bit differently. BMW motorsport boss Andreas Roos acknowledged the Munich-based marque used its time wisely on 27 August, granting them a solid reference point, but he still expects a tight fight given manufacturers' prior GT3 experience at the venue. Factory BMW driver Sheldon van der Linde, who took part in the one-day test, feels confident the factory WRT team has done its homework. "We have a lot of tools in the toolbox to execute on the race weekend," van der Linde said. "We know what to expect, we know what to work on, we know where our weaknesses and strengths are for that track specifically."
