***Cadillac secured its second FIA World Endurance Championship triumph, the first having been earned in Sao Paulo the previous season, after a controlling display from the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R crew of Jack Aitken, Sebastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber.
***While it represented JOTA’s third WEC victory overall, it also sustained the British squad’s habit of taking at least one win in the championship, in any class, since joining the series in 2016.
***While Bourdais and Bamber celebrated on the podium, Aitken watched the celebrations from the London Underground, having left the track and returned home after his opening double stint to be with his wife, Alex, for the birth of their first child.
***JOTA’s sporting director Leon Price commented: “The week certainly kept us on edge, that’s for sure. It could have been quite stressful for him, but he’s a very cool, calm professional. We did have to adjust things a touch, him starting in the car so he could catch the earliest flight. He was outstanding at the start and that set the tone.”
***Dallara has now matched Multimatic for the most WEC victories by a LMDh spine constructor. The Italian company collaborates with both BMW and Cadillac, with the Porsche 963’s chassis having been built by the Canadian outfit.
***Bamber ended a staggering 3,340-day drought without a win in the WEC’s top class, his previous overall triumph having come at Circuit of The Americas in 2017 aboard the Porsche 919 Hybrid. The prior record belonged to Andre Lotterer, at 3,227 days.
***Bourdais, meanwhile, secured his first overall WEC victory and first series title since taking part in Ford’s historic GTE-Pro triumph in 2016. Monza marked the rapid Frenchman’s final outing with JOTA and as a Cadillac factory driver.
***Six different cars claimed victories across the eight-round season, with the world championship-winning No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid driven by Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa the sole repeat winner, having won at Imola, Fuji and Barcelona.
***The No. 8 Toyota finished the event with one point after two post-race time penalties were imposed on the No. 007 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie for tyre pressure and energy violations.
***Buemi and Hartley became the first drivers to achieve five WEC titles, joining Jose Maria Lopez and Sebastien Ogier among the sport’s group of five-plus-time FIA world champions, alongside icons such as Sebastien Loeb, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.
***Hirakawa, in the meantime, emerged as the fastest driver to claim three titles and became the first Japanese driver to win three WEC championships. The feat came in his fourth season, just a week after he scored a point in a late Formula 1 debut in Mexico City.
***With Toyota’s No. 7 crew—Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries—winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it marked the fourth consecutive season in which the overall drivers’ champions did not lift the French endurance classic.
***In contrast, this year’s Le Mans-winning LMGT3 outfit, TF Sport, captured the class crown, becoming only the second team to win the championship in two different GT eras (GTE-Am and LMGT3) after Manthey. The Tom Ferrier-led squad also claimed the European Le Mans Series LMGT3 title this year.
***The British squad becomes just the second GT outfit to win a WEC title with a single victory in the season, while it marked Corvette’s second WEC title following Pratt Miller’s GTE-Am triumph in 2023, which also featured Ben Keating and Nicky Catsburg.
***Keating remarked: “Since Le Mans, we’ve carried some success ballast, which has made the racing later in the season quite challenging, but rewarding as well. Every point mattered. We collected a fifth, a seventh and a third. It all clicked at the end.”
***Jonny Edgar secured the LMGT3 drivers’ title as a solo driver because Keating missed the opening two rounds with an elbow fracture, and Catsburg was forced to skip Sao Paulo due to IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship commitments.
***The Dutch driver nevertheless finished second in the standings, with Keating fourth.
***Ferrier reflected: “The year has exceeded what we could have imagined. To have Le Mans, ELMS and now WEC is fantastic. It has been two pretty stressful weekends; the final hour at both Portimão and here wasn’t easy on the heart. It’s a pity none of these three guys are world champions, but that’s how the points fall.”
***Keating’s four seasons with TF yielded two team titles across GTE-Am and LMGT3, one runner-up finish in the championship and two Le Mans class triumphs. The FIA Bronze-rated Texan, who will retire from full-season competition next year, told Sportscar365 that he’ll line up in TF’s third Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R for Le Mans, a car secured by the ELMS title.
***Edgar became the 11th British driver to win a major drivers’ title, setting a new WEC record for a single nation, and is only the fourth driver to win a WEC championship on his own, following Gimmi Bruni (GTE-Pro, 2013), Sergey Zlobin (LMP2, 2014) and Richard Lietz (GTE-Pro 2025).
***The FIA Silver-rated driver, who will move to Gold ranking next year, also becomes the first non-Bronze to win the amateur-based GT title since Stuart Hall and Jamie Campbell-Walter in GTE-Am in 2013.
***Edgar, born in 2004, is the fourth driver born in the 21st century to win a WEC title, joining Joel Sturm (2000) as well as Charles Milesi and Nico Varrone (2001).
***LMGT3 race winner Lietz, who logged his 16th WEC victory on his 100th start, said he was “a bit surprised” that only a local yellow was necessary after Alex Lynn’s major late-race crash near Roggia, which scattered debris and did not prompt a medical car since the Englishman had recently returned to competition following neck surgery.
***Lietz added: “The crash was quite sizable. I expected there might be a VSC or safety car, so we eased off to ensure safety because the incident looked severe.”
***Lynn was deemed at fault by the stewards for the initial contact between his No. 12 JOTA Cadillac and the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 of Malthe Jakobsen at Turn 4, but no further action was taken for the contact a turn later that led to Lynn’s heavy shunt. “The end-of-race duel with Alex was very intense, but I always held my line, so it was a racing incident,” Jakobsen said.
***Peugeot Sport team principal Emmanuel Esnault added: “It was hard racing but the outcome is a car destroyed on their side, yet that’s racing. I think people at home with popcorn certainly enjoyed the race.”
***Jakobsen and his co-drivers Loic Duval and Theo Pourchaire finished fourth, which Esnault described as a “quite satisfying” performance. “We ticked the boxes we set for the race weekend, with both cars in Hyperpole and one in the top five,” he said. “We finish not on a high but not far from it. Now we move on and begin thinking about 2027.”
***The No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, driven by James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi, secured third place thanks to penalties on the No. 007 Valkyrie, and was the only 499P not penalised for tire-pressure infractions, which slowed Nos. 50 and 83 early on. It’s believed that limited dry running on the track, coupled with cold conditions, contributed to some teams breaching the minimum pressures.
***BMW finished the season second in the Hypercar manufacturers’ standings, with the No. 15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 drivers Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello ending the season third in the drivers’ standings. It marked the German manufacturer’s best Hypercar result to date.
***Several other cars received post-race time penalties after the checkered flag, including the No. 78 Akkodis-ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3 of Esteban Masson (40 seconds) for overtaking the No. 91 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo while under double yellow for Lynn’s accident, and the No. 61 Iron Lynx Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Maxime Martin (5 seconds) for leaving the track at Turn 4 and gaining a lasting advantage. Click Here for the final race classification.
***Additionally, Ferrari AF Corse was fined €3,000 ($3,355 USD) for one of its credentialed photographers taking photos on Monza’s old banking, which was deemed a red zone, during Free Practice 3.
***LMGT3 runner-up Riccardo Pera won the Goodyear Wingfoot award. Like Edgar, the Italian has been upgraded to Gold rating for next year.
***Paul-Loup Chatin believes the technical fault that caused a complete shutdown of the No. 19 Genesis GMR-001 while running second at the start of the third hour cost the brand its first podium. Chatin told Sportscar365 there was “no warning at all” of the problem and the team is still working to identify precisely what went wrong.
***He added: “We know it’s a complicated car and the team has worked incredibly hard since the project began to eradicate every issue we can, but it shows how tough this sport is right now that a small thing can have huge consequences.”
***The retirement meant the No. 19 crew of Chatin, Mathieu Jaminet and Dani Juncadella failed to score a point all season, the only car in either class to do so.
***Charles Milesi, who crashed out dramatically in the fourth hour, revealed it was a 20-g impact with the barriers in his No. 35 Alpine A424. “It was a fairly big hit. I’m disappointed we finished this program like this. It looked promising for us.”
***All Signatech Alpine crew members signed both of their A424s before the start of the race, signaling the end of the factory Hypercar program for the French manufacturer.
***A self-critical Eduardo Barrichello said he “let the team down” by missing out on LMGT3 victory to the No. 92 Manthey Porsche by just 0.270 seconds. The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo driver was charging in the final minutes but his attempt to slip past Lietz was hampered by the yellow flags following Lynn’s crash.
***Barrichello told Sportscar365: “When you’re that quick, there’s an expectation you’ll win. I’m sorry to the team; I gave it my all and felt I did everything possible, but we should have won.”
***Another outfit wondering what might have been was Proton Competition’s Ford Mustang GT3 EVO squad, as both cars stayed in contention before a flurry of penalties and incidents. The No. 77 car recovered from two drive-through penalties for repeated track-limit violations by Eric Powell to regain the lead, only to suffer significant damage in a collision with the No. 7 Toyota.
***Powell commented: “The car felt as good as it has all year, and with no deg here, it really highlighted our car’s potential. I’m frustrated with my mistakes in the second stint. I went from leading to two drive-through penalties, which hurt me personally. This race was chaotic—there were penalties and incidents everywhere, both on track and in the pits.”
***The sister No. 88 car incurred a five-second stop-and-hold penalty early on before bouncing back until receiving another stop-and-hold for pit-lane speeding that dropped Stefano Gattuso, Giammarco Levorato and Logan Sargeant out of contention. The car later retired with a front-end issue.
***Sargeant said: “This looked like our weekend to win, and unfortunately things unravelled and we couldn’t pull it off, but that’s racing. After a difficult season, we wanted to close strongly, and we couldn’t.”
***Richard Mille signalled the grid to go, in his final appearance as FIA Endurance Commission President. Mille is relinquishing his role due to the FIA-imposed 75-year-old age limit.
***WEC reported a weekend attendance of 75,181 spectators, up from 65,000 at the series’ last Monza visit in 2023. This year’s event served as a substitute for the 8 Hours of Bahrain due to geopolitical instability in the Middle East.
***The WEC remains slated to begin its 2027 campaign in Qatar on March 25-27, which will showcase the much-anticipated Hypercar debuts from Ford and McLaren.
Stephen Lickorish contributed to this report
