Bourdais helps lead Cadillac to Monza win, Toyota No. 8 trio take WEC title

Titles were settled, and emotional goodbyes were said up and down the pit lane as Hertz Team JOTA extended its streak of winning at least one race in every FIA World Endurance Championship season it has contested in today’s 2026 finale at Monza. The British team, which operates Cadillac’s Hypercar factory effort, put together a dominant, faultless run with the No. 38 V-Series.R driven by IMSA GTP champion Jack Aitken, Earl Bamber and departing Sebastien Bourdais, ending its second season with General Motors on a high.

Today’s six hours, held in front of 75,181 spectators trackside, was littered with incidents. But while there were plenty of thrills and spills up and down the order, it lacked any major championship drama.

Toyota’s No. 8 crew of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa cruised to the title with an 11th-place finish. Despite scoring zero points, the trio comfortably beat their only rivals in the sister No. 7 car, which came home 12th. It completed a perfect season for Toyota, winning Le Mans and sweeping the Hypercar class titles comfortably.

Manthey played the heavyweight, for the win but Corvette held on for the title. James Moy Photography/Getty Images

And in LMGT3, despite an astonishing run from its closest rival – The Bend Manthey’s No. 92 Porsche, which won the class from 11th on the grid while carrying 30 kilos of success ballast – TF Sport’s No. 33 Corvette claimed the LMGT3 teams’ championship and British driver Jonny Edgar took the drivers’ crown solo with a P3 finish.

All three race-winning drivers for JOTA delivered a sterling performance to score Cadillac its second WEC victory. It was a hard-earned result, built on the foundations laid by Aitken, who quickly took second at the start, then took the lead from the No. 19 Genesis GMR-001 with a daring move at Parabolica six laps later and didn’t look back.

The race featured four safety car periods and three full-course yellow periods across the six hours. Still, at each restart the No. 38 maintained control and eventually finished 5.4 seconds up the road from the No. 36 Alpine, which Victor Martins drove for more than four hours en route to an emotional second.

“Everyone has been working so hard at JOTA to get this win,” a jubilant Earl Bamber said after his first win since the 2017 race at COTA. “To continue the stat that they’ve won a race every year is great too. Seb has been faultless all year, and Jack, hopefully he has his baby tonight, he’s having to miss the podium.

“I think we’re going to be a force to be reckoned with in the future.”

Alpine’s emotional last dance in Hypercar ended with silverware, but it was a little bittersweet. The No. 36 crew were rewarded handsomely for their performance throughout the race, but on another day it could have been enough to win.

The entire team would have wanted to get both A424s home too, a target they failed to achieve after Charles Milesi crashed out heavily at Parabolica when the rear end stepped out on him in the fourth hour. With the French OEM bowing out of the WEC, service provider Signatech now has to put together a program to keep the team active in 2027.

The No. 007 Aston Martin Valkyrie looked to have taken a surprise podium after a storming drive late in the race from Tom Gamble, who snatched the place from the No. 51 Ferrari 499P on the run to the first chicane. But post-race, the team had 20 seconds added to its race time for a tire pressure infringement.

This meant the No. 51 Ferrari earned a podium consolation prize for its loyal fans trackside, after the Italian factory’s own tire-pressure dramas ultimately killed the pole-sitting No. 50 499P’s race early on.

The No. 007 Aston Martin dropped to fourth, ahead of the No. 94 Peugeot, which earned its best result of the season in the aftermath of a messy fight between Peugeot departee Malthe Jakobsen and Alex Lynn in his final outing for Cadillac. The pair eventually came together, with Lynn moving over on the Dane at the exit of the Seconda Variante chicane, sending the No. 12 Cadillac hard into the barriers and out of the race.

Meanwhile, Genesis’ chances of securing its first podium, like in Barcelona, fell apart in the first half of the race. The No. 19, which started on the front row, took the lead at Turn 1 with Daniel Juncadella and led the first six laps before Aitken move while the pair navigated traffic for the first time at Parabolica.

The car was then handed a five-second time penalty for Juncadella’s cut of the chicane to take the lead, before retiring at the start of hour three when Paul Loup Chatin lost power and pulled off at Variante Ascari, retiring from second. The No. 17 didn’t quite have the outright pace of the sister car and finished 13th, its race hurt by a stop-go penalty for a total power infringement.

In LMGT3, The Bend Manthey Porsche hung on to win its second consecutive race. Helped by the timing of one of the mid-race safety cars, and a Goodyear Wingfoot Award-winning performance from Riccardo Pera, Richard Lietz was able to cling to the lead in the closing laps. Amid a flurry of last-day-at-school-style tussles at the end of the race, the Austrian, in his 100th WEC start, fended off a hard-charging Dudu Barrichello in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin, which finished second.

Coming into the weekend, the No. 92 crew of Pera, Lietz and Yasser Shahin were ready to push but lacked confidence they could pull off a title upset. The gap to snatch the honors was 16 points, and the success ballast they had to haul through the race made it tough. But Manthey, as it has done time and time again in the WEC, found a way to emerge as a contender, seemingly out of nowhere through strategy, luck and sheer grit and determination.

Eric Warren, vice president of GM global motorsports competition, lauded TF Sport’s success as a reflection of “commitment and collaboration.”

“Along with the WEC championships, Corvette Racing earned its 10th class victory at Le Mans and a class win in Brazil,” he added. “At the same time, TF Sport secured its second consecutive European Le Mans Series championships. We’re proud of what this group has accomplished together and look forward to building on that success in 2027.”

Off the podium, the No. 69 WRT BMW claimed fourth, and the No. 78 Lexus, which started from pole, could only manage fifth.

LMGT3 was a highly attritional race, littered with penalties and contact that left the cars from Ford, McLaren and Lexus regretting missed opportunities for a better result.

More details to follow.

RESULTS