Why the WEC's BoP blackout is a bad call for all parties

Imola doesn’t make for good racing. Never has. You generally don’t see a lot of overtaking around the place. But that’s not the only explanation as to why I headed home from Italy with a feeling of disappointment after the belated 2026 World Endurance Championship curtain-raiser on Sunday. There was another reason why I was on a bit of a downer. And it was because I felt I’d left the paddock without knowing the full story behind Toyota’s Hypercar victory. Or at least as much as I would want. 

The Imola 6 Hours was an intriguing rather than an exciting race. The intrigue was provided by Toyota’s strategy call that got the winning #8 car out in the lead after the second round of pitstops. It opted not to change tyres, Ryo Hirakawa continuing on his way on the same rubber on which Brendon Hartley had started. Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari that had led the first two hours got fresh rubber on the right-hand side of the car. The extra five and a bit seconds it spent in pitlane explained the swap of positions.

Toyota had the confidence to triple stint the new Michelin medium-compound tyre, whereas Ferrari didn’t. The Italian manufacturer suggested that it was never on the cards. So my question as a journalist is, why was that? We know that the Toyota TR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar, formerly known as the GR010 before it got its swanky new look for this year, has always been good on its tyres. It has been the benchmark in Hypercar over the past few years. But what factors fed into those differing decisions?

I can’t tell you that, because the Balance of Performance wasn’t published ahead of Imola. In fact, it’s not going to be made public before each of the WEC rounds this year, or at least that’s the plan for the moment. A decision has been made by the organisers, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest and the FIA, to keep it a secret.

Their argument outlined by new ACO deputy director of competition Bruno Famin is that we wouldn’t understand it anyway. Publishing the figures, he has insisted, is meaningless if you don’t know the homologation data for each of the cars, and it can’t reveal that — and it never has — for confidentiality reasons. 

His comments take me back a few years to the introduction of what was known as the ‘auto BoP’ in GTE Pro in 2016. It was an entirely empirical system whereby the numbers were fed in the top, a handle pulled and then, ping, out came the BoP at the bottom. I had been promised that the algorithm used to calculate those figures would be released into the public domain in the name of transparency. It never was. 

The #8 Toyota victory was won in part by a car good on tyres and smart strategy but the extent of the BoP's influence on the race is not known

Photo by: FIA WEC / DPPI

An engineer I’ve known for years who was working for one of the manufacturers involved in the class was dismissive of my complaints. Not one to believe that any journo has much in the way of technical savvy, he told me that I wouldn’t understand it anyway. My response? That’s not the point! It’s either transparent or it’s not.

Transparency is everything in our sport, any sport. Think about all the controversy over the use of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) in football. For the current Premier League season there are now on-field explanations of the decisions made. Surely that is a step forward. The WEC has gone the other way by not releasing the BoP. That has to be a retrograde step. 

As a journalist trying to explain not only what happened in a motor race but also why it happened, I want as much information as possible. I get Famin’s point that I or anyone else in the media wouldn’t be able to offer a full explanation of the BoP, but anything we have can help us interpret what is happening on the track, in the pits and on the pitwall. 

What was the story at Imola? Half the story was Toyota was better on its tyres than the Ferrari and that allowed it to make a strategy call that won it the race. Having the BoP in front of me would give me the chance to offer a bit more by way of explanation

I’d like to know the minimum weights the GR010 and the Ferrari 499P LMH, and all the other cars for that matter, were running at Imola. That clearly has an effect on tyre life. It would be good to know where we started in 2026 and then the evolution of the BoP through the season. It would help me do my job in terms of explaining the why and how. Trends might emerge. All we know for the moment is that Ferrari thought it was losing out in acceleration to the Toyota. Alessandro Pier Guidi in the second-placed Ferrari let that slip. So where did the two cars stand on weight and power?

Think about Toyota’s annus horribilis last season and how it came good at the Bahrain finale and took its first victory of the season, and a dominant one at that. The explanation was simple. The GR010 was running at a minimum weight and maximum power comparable with the rest of the field, which it hadn’t previously in 2025. The fact that the move happened in advance of the WEC’s arrival at a track where Toyota has always excelled was the story that weekend.

So what was the story at Imola? Half the story was Toyota was better on its tyres than the Ferrari and that allowed it to make a strategy call that won it the race. Having the BoP in front of me would give me the chance to offer a bit more by way of explanation.

Toyota celebrates winning the WEC opener after a nightmare 2025

Photo by: FIA WEC / DPPI

Of course, the WEC organisation wants the BoP to be a non-story. It doesn’t want us writing about it. Instead, it would like us to concentrate on the racing, the competition between the eight manufacturers in Hypercar. But, whether the ACO and the FIA like it or not, it is part of the story. It certainly was last year when the BoP didn’t do its job, and it was easy to see why looking at the figures in black and white in front of you. It seems strange on the back of the events of 2025, that they are now saying we don’t have to bother with the BoP and simply trust them to get it right.

Sport is all about narratives. And the BoP is part of that in the WEC. It is the foundation stone of the success of Hypercar. Many don’t like the BoP, but the simple fact is that there are eight manufacturers in the top class of the series — and more coming — because we have the BoP. So why not talk about it?

BoP should be treated as positive building block of the success the WEC has achieved and not hidden away

Photo by: FIAWEC - DPPI