Cadillac Wins Monza as Toyota Trio Takes 2026 WEC Title

Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA ended the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship with a victory at Monza, while Toyota’s No. 8 crew of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa secured the Hypercar drivers’ world championship.

The FIA WEC organizer announced Jack Aitken, Sébastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber as the winners in the No. 38 Cadillac V-Series.R after Sunday’s six-hour race. The result gave Cadillac its first victory of the season. At the time of publication, the event’s detailed classification was still labeled provisional, so positions and gaps remain subject to post-race checks.

Cadillac converts early pace into the win

Aitken moved the Cadillac to the front during the opening phase after passing the pole-starting No. 50 Ferrari and the No. 19 Genesis. Bourdais later absorbed pressure from the No. 36 Alpine before Bamber completed the final stint. The provisional classification put the Cadillac 5.607 seconds ahead of the Alpine A424 shared by Victor Martins and Jules Gounon after 191 laps.

The No. 007 Aston Martin Valkyrie finished third, 33.585 seconds behind the winner, for the model’s first WEC podium. Ferrari’s No. 51 entry was fourth and Peugeot’s No. 94 completed the top five. Those race results reversed the qualifying order reported in our Monza pole-position story, where Ferrari’s No. 50 had started first but ultimately finished seventh.

Toyota’s No. 8 crew seals the championship

Toyota had already secured the manufacturers’ championship before Monza, but its two crews arrived with the drivers’ title undecided. The No. 8 trio entered the finale 17 points ahead of the No. 7 Toyota. With the No. 8 classified 11th and the No. 7 12th, neither car scored, leaving Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa on top of the standings.

The title is Buemi’s fifth in the series, Hartley’s fourth and Hirakawa’s third, according to the organizer. It is also the trio’s third championship together after their 2022 and 2023 successes. Their 2026 campaign included victories at Imola, Fuji and Barcelona, giving them enough margin to survive Toyota’s difficult Monza finish.

That distinction matters: Cadillac won the race, while Toyota won the season-long drivers’ championship. The two achievements came from different competitive stories—Cadillac controlled much of the finale, and the No. 8 Toyota relied on the points accumulated before Monza.

Porsche wins LMGT3; TF Sport takes the titles

The LMGT3 race was considerably tighter. Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz won in The Bend Manthey’s No. 92 Porsche, just 0.270 second ahead of Heart of Racing’s No. 23 Aston Martin. The No. 33 TF Sport Corvette finished third, 9.600 seconds behind the class winner.

Despite missing the race win, TF Sport secured both the LMGT3 teams’ and drivers’ championships. Jonny Edgar became the class’s first sole drivers’ champion since 2015, the organizer reported. The result completed a weekend in which the class pole had gone to Lexus; that qualifying result is included in the same Chiefs Review preview of the finale.

What is confirmed—and what remains provisional

FIA WEC’s post-race news release identifies Cadillac as the Hypercar winner, The Bend Manthey as the LMGT3 winner and the Toyota No. 8 trio as drivers’ champions. The organizer’s race-summary page, however, still marked the detailed finishing order as provisional when this report was prepared. Chiefs Review will treat the announced winners as official organizer reporting while retaining that qualification until the final classification is posted.

Sources

• FIA WEC: Cadillac wins at Monza; Toyota No. 8 crew takes the title, November 8, 2026
• FIA WEC: 2026 6 Hours of Monza race summary and provisional classification
• Autosport: Monza race report, November 8, 2026

Featured image: the No. 38 Cadillac V-Series.R during the 2026 Monza weekend. Photo credit: DPPI/FIA WEC. The image was supplied by the official championship media service and is used under its editorial-use license; commercial reuse is not permitted. Image source · FIA WEC media-use terms.