Next year’s World Endurance Championship will have quite a fresh look to it. Genesis will be making its debut on the grid, Toyota has a heavily updated, fresh-faced GR010 competing, while Porsche is dipping out of the global series to focus on the North American IMSA championship.
Meanwhile, over at BMW, it’ll be giving its top-class competing M Hybrid V8 a little bit of a makeover as it aims to compete for race wins, including a subtle nod to some hardcore road cars.
2026 BMW M Hybrid V8, headlight
If you’ve seen any of the M5 CS, M4 CS or M3 CS parked up in recent years, you’ll have noticed the yellow tinge to their headlights when at a standstill. That’s also deployed on the M4 GT3 race car in motion, and now the M Hybrid V8 will be following suit as BMW looks to stand out a little in a now pretty crowded class.
There’s more to it than a bit of branding, though, with the Hypercar introducing some new advancements in lighting tech that will apparently further improve visibility in night racing. That’ll be handy for Sebring and Le Mans in particular, and don’t be surprised if this leads to more burnt retinas when you pass a new BMW with its high beams left on in about five years.
2026 BMW M Hybrid V8, front
Beyond the headlights, the M Hybrid V8 is also coming with a smaller kidney grille and reworked front splitter for the sake of optimising air flow at the front of the car. How effective these changes will be remains to be seen until the 24 Hours of Daytona in January, when the 2026 car will make its debut.
Enough to compete for the top step of the 24 Hours of Le Mans next season? Who knows, but it’s a tantalising prospect if the pace of the all-conquering Ferrari 499P can be caught by another manufacturer.
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