The season marked the formal renaming of the series to the World Sports-Prototype Championship, reflecting the FIA's emphasis on closed-cockpit Group C machinery as the championship's defining class. The nine-round calendar ran entirely within the year's single calendar half — finishing in October — and four of the nine rounds (Rounds 1, 4, 5, and 6) did not count toward the Teams Championship, adding further complexity to title calculations.
The class structure retained Group C1 and Group C2 categories, with separate championships for each. Group C2 teams and drivers competed for the FIA Cup for Group C2 Drivers and the FIA Cup for Group C2 Teams as sub-championships within the overall series.
Points were awarded to the top ten finishers at each round in the order of 20-15-12-10-8-6-4-3-2-1. Drivers who failed to drive for a minimum percentage of race laps were not awarded points. In the Teams Championship, only the highest-finishing car from each team scored, and no points were given to additional team cars finishing behind. Neither drivers nor teams scored if their car did not complete 90 percent of the winner's distance.
The 1986 Drivers Championship produced one of the most unusual title decisions in sportscar racing history. Derek Bell and Hans-Joachim Stuck normally shared the same factory Porsche 962C and finished the season level on 82 championship points. The title was resolved by their relative finishing positions at the Norisring round — the sole event at which they did not compete as co-drivers.
At the Norisring, Porsche had separately contracted Stuck to drive the works car in the ADAC Supercup, so Bell was forced to find his own drive. He secured a seat in a privately run 2.6-litre Porsche 956, a significantly less powerful machine than the works 962C. Stuck led the early stages but lost ten laps in the pits with a gearbox problem and ultimately finished 15th. Bell, outgunned on power, drove his private 956 to 11th place — outside the points but one position higher than Stuck. That single positional advantage at the Norisring was enough to award the Drivers Championship to Bell, making it one of the most tightly contested title resolutions in the championship's history.
The FIA Cup for Group C2 Drivers was awarded jointly to Raymond Bellm and Gordon Spice, who shared an Ecosse chassis. Brun Motorsport's Teams Championship victory was built on consistent scoring across the eligible rounds, the Swiss privateer operation overcoming the factory Porsche effort in the outright team standings.
The 1986 season is remembered primarily for the Bell-Stuck tiebreaker, which highlighted the co-driver scoring system's potential to produce dramatic title outcomes even when two drivers are technically inseparable on points. Derek Bell's championship, his second consecutive, cemented his reputation as one of the defining sportscar racing drivers of the decade. Porsche's technical dominance continued, though Brun Motorsport's Teams title showed that privateer Porsche 962C operations could outperform the factory program in the team standings.