WINNER – Sébastien Bourdais
For his final race with Cadillac, Sébastien Bourdais claimed victory at Monza alongside Jack Aitken and Earl Bamber, securing his first overall WEC win in the process. It was also Cadillac Team JOTA’s first victory of the season, extending the team’s streak of winning seasons in the WEC to twelve years.
Starting third, Aitken quickly took the lead in the No. 38 V-Series.R before leaving the circuit to join his wife, who was about to give birth. Bourdais and Bamber finished the job, despite Victor Martins closing in during the final hour.
“It’s a great send-off for me – I couldn’t have dreamt of a better way to finish this chapter,” said the Le Mans native. “Hopefully it’s not the end for me, but it is the end of a chapter with GM.”
In total, the No. 38 led 181 of the 191 laps. Almost complete domination, although things were far from perfect for Cadillac elsewhere.
LOSER – Cadillac
Victory for the No. 38 could have been accompanied by third place in the Manufacturers’ Championship. But the No. 12 V-Series.R first had to reach the finish.
Despite a difficult race, Alex Lynn had fought his way back to fifth in the closing laps. That result would have allowed Cadillac to finish ahead of Ferrari in the final standings. Instead, his battle with Malthe Jakobsen’s No. 94 Peugeot turned increasingly physical.
After several contacts, the two cars collided, sending the No. 12 V-Series.R into the barriers. The retirement meant zero points and a bitter end to Lynn’s time with Cadillac.
WINNER – TF Sport
Fifth place would have been enough for the No. 33 Corvette to secure the LMGT3 Teams’ title. Ben Keating, Jonny Edgar and Nicky Catsburg went two places better, finishing third behind the No. 92 The Bend Manthey Porsche and the No. 23 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin.
The race, however, proved anything but straightforward. The Corvette dropped as low as twelfth while the No. 92 Porsche headed towards victory. TF Sport had to avoid penalties, save fuel and make the most of a well-timed neutralisation to climb back through the field.
“There was definitely pressure because the No. 92 looked like it was going to win,” admitted Edgar. “We still had a lot of work to do, and it wasn’t easy.”
The Briton claimed the Drivers’ world title, while TF Sport secured the Teams’ crown. His team-mates, however, could not officially share his individual title because their respective absences had created gaps in the points standings.
LOSER – Toyota
Toyota left Monza with both world titles, but its TR010 Hybrids finished tenth and eleventh. Just one point for a manufacturer that had won four races this season, including the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The Balance of Performance weighed heavily on Toyota’s competitiveness. Starting fourteenth and seventeenth, neither car was able to make significant progress through the field.
That did not prevent Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa from claiming their third world title together. The No. 8 finished ahead of its sister car, which had entered the finale needing to overturn a 17-point deficit.
“We knew we just had to beat the No. 7, but you never know what can happen,” Buemi reflected. A frustrating finale, but one that could hardly overshadow Toyota’s commanding performance throughout the season.
WINNER – BMW
BMW failed to reach the podium at Monza. Strong in the opening stages, the M Hybrid V8s subsequently slipped down the order. But Ferrari’s struggles allowed the Bavarian manufacturer to preserve what mattered most.
Fifth with the No. 15 and seventh with the No. 20, BMW M Team WRT retained second place in the Manufacturers’ Championship ahead of Ferrari and Cadillac. Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello also secured third in the Drivers’ standings.
“Both cars delivered a very strong performance in the race,” said Andreas Roos, Head of BMW M Motorsport. “We managed to fight our way towards the front relatively early on. Unfortunately, we received a penalty, and there was also a technical issue with the number 20 car, the cause of which we still need to investigate thoroughly.”
Magnussen was penalised for overtaking under yellow flags, while the No. 20 suffered a problem affecting its hybrid system, which caused Robin Frijns to run slightly off track on several occasions.
“Ultimately, though, it is a very positive end to the 2026 season. We celebrated victories, achieved a fantastic second place at Le Mans and secured second place in the manufacturers’ standings here at the finale, as well as third place in the drivers’ standings for car 15,” Roos concluded.
LOSER – Ferrari
Antonio Fuoco’s pole position had raised Ferrari’s hopes. Racing in front of the tifosi, on the final appearance of the 499P in its current configuration, the Scuderia was targeting victory.
Instead, it had to settle for third place with the No. 51. Penalties handed to its other two cars also affected the outcome: the No. 83 was classified sixth and the No. 50 ninth.
“We made a few mistakes, such as the tyre pressure settings on numbers 83 and 50, which cost us a little and forced us to change our strategy during the race,” acknowledged Ferdinando Cannizzo, Head of Endurance Race Cars at Ferrari.
The No. 51 salvaged a podium, but Ferrari could neither convert pole position into victory nor dislodge BMW from second place in the Manufacturers’ Championship.
WINNER – Alpine
Alpine is leaving the Hypercar category just as the A424 appears to have reached the level of competitiveness the team had spent so long pursuing.
At Monza, Jules Gounon and Victor Martins finished second, just 5.6 seconds behind the winning Cadillac. Martins closed in on Earl Bamber during the final hour but could not find a way past.
“There is a little frustration because the victory was within reach at one point, but Cadillac managed its energy very well,” admitted Martins.
The No. 35 could have added to Alpine’s result. Having climbed to fifth, it was forced to retire following Charles Milesi’s crash at the Parabolica.
“Cadillac was stronger today, but our race execution, operational performance and the work of the drivers were flawless,” said Philippe Sinault.
LOSER – Genesis
Genesis had shown encouraging pace in qualifying, and the No. 19 even took the lead early in the race. But, as in Barcelona, its single-lap performance did not translate into sustained race pace.
The No. 19’s race ended when Paul-Loup Chatin’s car suddenly shut down. It was the crew’s first retirement of the season and only Genesis’ second since entering the WEC.
The No. 17 fared little better. After breaking into the top ten, it lost ground and eventually finished thirteenth.
“Unfortunately, on the powertrain side, we encountered issues in the second half of the race that were difficult to solve while we were running. We had to manage our way around the issues, so there’s a lot of pace that was thrown away because of that,” explained Pipo Derani.
Those recurring PPU (Power Processing Unit) problems will need to be addressed if Genesis hopes to challenge regularly at the front in 2027.
WINNER – Monza
The WEC had not visited Monza since 2023. Its return to the calendar, following the cancellation of the Qatar 1812km and the 8 Hours of Bahrain, could easily have been little more than a stopgap solution.
Despite the cold and heavy rain during the opening days, 75,181 spectators attended the Autodromo Nazionale Monza across the weekend. An impressive turnout for a season finale held in November.
The race also delivered plenty of drama, despite four Safety Car interventions and three Full Course Yellow periods. Seven neutralisations did little to prevent the suspense from lasting until the closing laps.
LOSER – Aston Martin
For a few minutes, Aston Martin believed it had secured its first Hypercar podium with the Valkyrie. Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble had crossed the finish line third in the No. 007, following a late overtake by Gamble on the No. 51 Ferrari.
But the Valkyrie was penalised for exceeding the permitted energy allocation per stint. A 100-second stop-and-go penalty, converted into a 145-second addition to its race time, dropped the car to twelfth.
Third place therefore went back to the No. 51 Ferrari. A particularly cruel penalty for Aston Martin, given that the Valkyrie had just delivered one of its most convincing performances of the season.