Aitken, Bourdais and Bamber give Cadillac its first 2026 WEC win at Monza as Alpine bows out on the podium

Cadillac finally has its first win of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship. Jack Aitken, Sébastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber took the #38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac to victory in the 6 Hours of Monza on Sunday, leading from lap seven to the flag and beating the #36 Alpine by 5.607 seconds.

Behind them, the season was decided on a day when Toyota had little to celebrate on track. The #8 crew of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa finished only tenth, but that was enough for the Drivers’ world title. In LMGT3, the #92 Manthey Porsche won the race and the #33 TF Sport Corvette won the championship. The official classification and standings are in our WEC Monza 2026 results.

How the #38 Cadillac took control

Miguel Molina started from pole in the #50 Ferrari but lost the lead at the first chicane. Daniel Juncadella went around the outside in the #19 Genesis and cut the corner to get ahead, a move that later earned him a five-second penalty. Aitken, third on the starting grid, also passed the Ferrari and took the lead from Juncadella on lap seven on the run to Parabolica. The #38 Cadillac was never headed after that, although a string of cautions in the first two hours kept it from pulling clear.

The #19 Genesis was still running second when Paul-Loup Chatin stopped at the start of the third hour with what looked like an electrical shutdown. Bourdais took over the Cadillac under the Virtual Safety Car that followed and had to fend off the #36 Alpine A424 of Victor Martins and the #20 WRT BMW of Sheldon van der Linde at the restart. Van der Linde got ahead of Martins before half distance after a Full Course Yellow, but the order flipped again after the fourth VSC, triggered by Charles Milesi’s heavy crash in the #35 Alpine at Parabolica. Martins took second back at the first chicane on the restart and held it to the end.

Bamber replaced Bourdais during that VSC and brought the car home. The Cadillac’s lead of more than ten seconds came down as it saved fuel, but the margin at the line was still 5.607 seconds. JOTA keeps its record of winning at least once in every WEC season it has contested, and Alpine leaves the Hypercar class with a podium.

Aston Martin loses third after the flag

Tom Gamble crossed the line third in the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie after taking over from Harry Tincknell. He passed the #94 Peugeot with 25 minutes left and the #51 Ferrari in the final 15. After the flag, a 20-second penalty for low tyre pressures dropped the Aston to fourth, and the car faced an investigation into its energy use. A second post-race penalty followed: in the final classification the #007 is 12th, one lap down and out of the points. That handed third to the #51 Ferrari of Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi, so the reigning champions still finished on the podium. Theirs was the only Ferrari to escape a tyre pressure penalty early on, on the first fully dry running of the weekend at Monza.

Fourth was Peugeot’s best result of 2026, for the #94 of Loïc Duval, Theo Pourchaire and Malthe Jakobsen, despite a clutch problem and in the Dane’s final race for the team. Jakobsen fought Alex Lynn’s #12 Cadillac in the closing laps, and the two touched on the exit of the Roggia chicane with two minutes to go, sending Lynn into the barrier. Both are under post-race investigation. In the final classification the #15 BMW was fifth, ahead of the #83 Ferrari, the #20 BMW and the #93 Peugeot, with the #50 Ferrari ninth. BMW had two cars in the top four for a while, but faded when Robin Frijns went off twice at Ascari on worn tyres.

Toyota out of the points, but the #8 crew are champions

Toyota had neither the pace nor a clean race. The #8 finished tenth, good for one point, one place ahead of the #7 of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries, which needed second place to beat its sister car to the title. Conway’s career ended with 11th place. The final points are in the WEC standings 2026.

LMGT3: Manthey wins, Edgar takes the title

The first half of the LMGT3 race belonged to the Proton Competition Fords and the Akkodis ASP Lexus cars, with all four leading at some stage. The #77 Mustang passed the pole-sitting #78 Lexus after five laps, but both picked up penalties: two drive-throughs for track limits for the Ford and two VSC infringements for the Lexus. The #87 Lexus then led for a couple of hours before the #88 Ford went ahead, and the Lexus stopped on track after debris holed its radiator.

The fourth VSC turned the race around. The two title contenders, the #92 Manthey Porsche and the #33 Corvette, had not yet stopped and ran first and second. Ben Tuck put the #77 Ford back in front in the fifth hour, but its race fell apart when Seb Priaulx collided with the #7 Toyota and needed repairs. In his 100th WEC race, Richard Lietz brought the Porsche he shares with Yasser Shahin and Riccardo Pera home 0.270 seconds ahead of the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage of Gray Newell, Eduardo Barrichello and Jonny Adam, with Barrichello closing in at the end. It was the car’s second win in a row, but not enough for a third LMGT3 title for Manthey.

Third place for the #33 Corvette, which Jonny Edgar shares with Ben Keating and Nicky Catsburg, made Edgar champion; he needed sixth. Keating had collected a penalty for a VSC infringement in the second hour that dropped the car out of the points, but penalties for rivals and a steady stint from Edgar brought it back. TF Sport also won the Teams’ title, and Edgar is the first sole Drivers’ champion in the class since 2015. The #34 Racing Team Turkey Corvette’s slim title hopes ended when Peter Dempsey hit the #27 Aston Martin of Zacharie Robichon at Turn 1 while fighting for third in the third hour, and the drive-through that followed left the car 11th.

The #69 WRT BMW finished fourth, ahead of the #78 Lexus and the #91 Manthey Porsche. The #10 McLaren lost laps when Antares Au went off at Ascari avoiding a clash between Newell and Johannes Zelger’s #79 Iron Lynx Mercedes. The sister #58 McLaren retired after Alexander West collided with Darren Leung’s #32 WRT BMW at Turn 1 in the second hour, which also ended Leung’s race. The #54 Ferrari retired and the #21 Ferrari was ninth.

Photos from the weekend: Rick Kiewiet’s pictures from Monza are on RNT Media.

The 2027 season starts with the Qatar 1812km in March: WEC 2027 calendar.

Who impressed you most at Monza: the JOTA Cadillac crew, Alpine on its farewell, or champion Jonny Edgar? Tell us in the comments.