Chaos at Monza: Cadillac Win the Finale as Toyota Collect their Crowns
Cadillac won the 2026 World Endurance Championship finale at Monza, while Toyota's #8 crew sealed the Drivers' title despite finishing outside the points.
A Wet Weekend, A Dry Race
Rain fell on Friday and Saturday so nobody knew quite what to expect from Sunday. In the end the six-hour race ran in the dry and it was a messy one. Ferrari's Antonio Fuoco had grabbed pole position in the #50 car, with the Genesis #19 and the #38 Cadillac close behind. Just a quarter of a second covered the top five on the grid so a tight race looked likely.
Cadillac in Control
Jack Aitken, Sébastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber drove the #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA to their first win of 2026. Aitken passed both the pole-sitting Ferrari and the Genesis in the opening hour, and the Cadillac then led for most of the afternoon. Bourdais had to hold off Alpine's Victor Martins for a while in the second hour, but after that the car was rarely troubled, even though plenty of Safety Car and Full Course Yellow periods kept bunching up the field. It wasn’t all good news for Cadillac. Alex Lynn crashed the sister #12 car out in a collision with the #93 Peugeot with about three minutes to go.
Alpine Sign Off With A Podium
The #36 Alpine of Jules Gounon and Martins finished second, about five and a half seconds behind the winner. That was their third podium in the last four rounds and a nice way to bow out, with Monza being Alpine's final WEC race.
Ferrari's Podium Arrived After The Flag
The biggest twist came once the race was over. With 15 minutes left, Tom Gamble had passed the #51 Ferrari in the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie to take third. Ferrari had been struggling with fuel consumption and could not hold him off. Then race control handed Aston Martin a 20-second penalty for a tyre pressure infringement, which dropped them down the order and gave the podium to Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi at Ferrari's home race. The other Ferraris were not so lucky. The #50 and #83 cars both picked up 20-second penalties for tyre pressures, and Fuoco's pole-sitting car recovered only as far as ninth.
Toyota Crowned Without Scoring
The Toyotas came into the day, already having sealed the Manufacturers’ title, but still with the drivers’ championship to decide. Both Toyotas finished outside the points but it did not matter. Only Toyota crews were still in the title fight, so when neither car scored, the Drivers' title went to Brendon Hartley, Sébastien Buemi and Ryo Hirakawa in the #8. Toyota said the Balance of Performance rules had held them back all weekend, but they had already wrapped up the Manufacturers' crown in Barcelona, so they walked away with every world title on offer.
Elsewhere, Peugeot's #94 finished fourth and BMW's #15 fifth. Genesis lost out badly when the #19 car retired from second place with a technical problem.
LMGT3: A Close One at the Front
The Bend Manthey Porsche of Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz won by about a quarter of a second, which made it their second LMGT3 victory in a row. Behind them, the TF Sport Corvette of Jonny Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating finished third, and that was enough to give TF Sport the Teams' title. Edgar was crowned Drivers' champion, the WEC's first solo champion since Lietz in 2015. Keating and Catsburg were not eligible for the title because they had missed races earlier in the season.
Article written by Ayaan Rahman
