Monza Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Fabrizio Boldoni/DPPI

***Cadillac scored its second FIA World Endurance Championship victory, the first having come in Sao Paulo last year, following a controlling run for the No. 38 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R of Jack Aitken, Sebastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber.

***While it marked JOTA’s third overall WEC win, it also maintained the British squad’s streak of winning at least one WEC race, in any class, since joining the world championship in 2016.

***While Bourdais and Bamber celebrated on the podium, Aitken was watching winning ceremonies while on the London Tube, having left the circuit and flown home following his opening double stint to be with his wife, Alex, for the birth of their first child.

***JOTA’s sporting director Leon Price said: “It certainly kept us on our toes this week, that’s for sure. It could have been potentially quite stressful for him but he’s a very cool, calm guy and a very professional job. We did have to change things up slightly, him being in the car first, so he could hop on the earliest plane. He was awesome at the start and it really set the tone.”

***Dallara has now tied Multimatic for the most WEC wins by a LMDh spine constructor. The Italian firm works with both BMW and Cadillac, with the Porsche 963’s spine having been built by the Canadian firm.

***Bamber ended a 3,340-day winless streak in the WEC’s top class, with the Kiwi’s last overall win having come at Circuit of The Americas in 2017 in the Porsche 919 Hybrid. The previous record was held by Andre Lotterer, at 3,227 days.

***Bourdais, meanwhile, picked up his first overall WEC win and first series victory since being part of the historic Ford GT victory in GTE-Pro in 2016. Monza marked the rapid Frenchman’s final outing with JOTA and as a Cadillac factory driver.

***Six different cars won races in the eight-round season this year, with the world championship-winning No. 8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa the only repeat winner, who claimed victories at Imola, Fuji and Barcelona.

***The No. 8 Toyota ended up scoring one point in the race following two post-race time penalties for the No. 007 Heart of Racing Team Aston Martin Valkyrie, for tire pressure and energy violations.

***Buemi and Hartley become the first WEC five-time champions, joining Jose Maria Lopez and Sebastien Ogier as five-plus time FIA world champions, alongside others such as Sebastien Loeb, Lewis Hamilton and Michael Schumacher.

***Hirakawa, meanwhile, became the fastest driver to claim three titles, and the first Japanese driver to win a trio of WEC championships. The feat has come in only his fourth season and just one week after scoring a point in his last minute Formula 1 debut in Mexico City.

***With Toyota’s No. 7 crew of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries winning the 24 Hours of Le Mans, it marked the fourth consecutive season where the overall drivers’ champions didn’t win the French endurance classic.

***In contrast, this year’s Le Mans-winning LMGT3 squad, TF Sport, picked up the class title, becoming only the second team to win the championship in two different GT eras (GTE-Am and GT4) after Manthey. The Tom Ferrier-led team also won the European Le Mans Series LMGT3 title this year.

***The British squad becomes only the second GT team to have won a WEC title with just a single victory on the season, while it marked the second WEC title for Corvette following the Pratt Miller-run squad’s triumph in GTE-Am in 2023, which also came with Ben Keating and Nicky Catsburg.

***Keating said: “Since we won Le Mans, we’ve had a lot of success ballast, which has made the racing for the rest of the season pretty challenging but also rewarding. Every little point mattered. We got a fifth place and a seventh place and third place. It all came together at the end.”

***Jonny Edgar won the LMGT3 drivers’ title as a solo driver, due to Keating missing the first two races of the season because of elbow fracture, and Catsburg having forced to skip Sao Paulo due to his IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship commitments.

***The Dutchman, however, still finished second in the championship, with Keating in fourth.

***Ferrier said: “The year has been more than we could have thought up. To have Le Mans, ELMS and now [WEC] is brilliant. It’s been two pretty stressful weekends, the last hour of both Portimao and here have not been good on my heart. It’s a shame all three of these guys aren’t world champions but that’s the way the points work.”

***Keating’s four seasons with TF produced two teams’ titles across GTE-Am and LMGT3, one runner-up finish in the championship and two Le Mans class wins. The FIA Bronze-rated Texan, who will bow out of full season competition next year, revealed to Sportscar365 that he’ll be in TF’s third Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R for Le Mans, which was secured by the team’s ELMS title.

***Edgar became the 11th British driver to win a major drivers’ title, a new WEC record by a single nation, while is only the fourth driver to win a WEC championship on his own, after 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, additionally 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, who was 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 scored his 16th WEC victory on his landmark 100th series start, said he was “a bit surprised” with only a local yellow having been called for Alex Lynn’s massive late-race crash out of the Roggia chicane, which spread debris across the track and didn’t provide any medical car to get to the Englishman, who was back in series competition only for the second time since undergoing neck surgery.

***Lietz said: “It was quite a big crash. I expected that there would maybe be a VSC or safety car or something. Obviously we lifted quite a lot to be safe because it looked quite nasty.”

***Lynn was deemed at fault by the stewards for the initial incident between his No. 12 JOTA Cadillac and the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 of Malthe Jakobsen in Turn 4, but no further action was taken for the contact for the incident one turn later that led to Lynn’s sizable shunt. “The battle with Alex at the end of the race was very intense, but I always held my line, so it was a racing incident,” said Jakobsen.

***Peugeot Sport team principal Emmanuel Esnault added: “It was hard racing but the outcome of it is a car destroyed on their side, but it’s racing. I think people on the sofa with popcorn definitely enjoyed the race.”

***Jakobsen and co-drivers Loic Duval and Theo Pourchaire ended up finishing fourth, in what Esnault described as a “quite satisfying” performance. “We ticked the boxes we were setting before the race weekend with both cars in Hyperpole and one in the top-five,” he said. “We finish not on a high but in a not-bad result. Now we move on and from tomorrow onwards we focus on 2027.”

***The No. 51 AF Corse Ferrari 499P of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi scored a third place result, courtesy to the No. 007 Valkyrie’s penalties, and was the only 499P to not have received penalties for tire pressure infractions, which set both the Nos. 50 and 83 cars back early in the running. It’s believed the lack of dry running time on the circuit, coupled with cold weather conditions, played a factor in some teams running afoul of the minimum pressures.

***BMW ended the season second in the Hypercar manufacturers’ world championship, with the full season drivers of the No. 15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello, finishing third in the drivers’ world championship. It marked the German manufacturer’s best performance to date in the Hypercar class.

***Several other cars received post-race time penalties issued 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 the 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 problem 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 a maiden podium. Chatin told Sportscar365 there was “no warning at all” of the problem and the team is still working to identify exactly what the issue was.

***He added: “We know it’s a complicated car and the team is working super hard since the beginning of the project to eradicate all kinds of issue we can face but it shows how difficult this sport is at the moment that one 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 that did not.

***Charles Milesi, who crashed out of the race in dramatic fashion in the fourth hour, revealed it was a 20-g impact with the barriers in his No. 35 Alpine A424. “It was quite a big one. I’m a bit disappointed that we finished this race like this. That’s not the way I wanted to finish the program, and it looked quite promising for us.”

***All of the Signatech Alpine crew signed both of its A424s prior to the start of the race, which marked the end of the factory Hypercar program for the French manufacturer.

***A self-critical Eduardo Barrichello said he “let the team down” for missing out on LMGT3 victory to the No. 92 Manthey Porsche by 0.270 seconds. The Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo driver was on a charge in the final minutes but his efforts to get by Lietz were hampered by the yellow flags for Lynn’s crash.

***Barrichello told Sportscar365: “I feel like, when you’re that quick, everybody expects you to win. I’m sorry to the team, I gave it my all and felt like I maximized everything I had, but we should’ve won.”

***Another team left wondering what might have been was the Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 EVO squad after both cars were in contention before a multitude of penalties and incidents. The No. 77 machine recovered from two drive-through penalties for repeated track-limits abuses by Eric Powell to retake the lead only to suffer significant damage in a clash with the No. 7 Toyota.

***Powell told Sportscar365: “It’s the best the car felt all year and, with no deg here, really helps the chances for our car. I’m frustrated with myself for mistakes I made in the second stint. I went from leading to getting two drive-through penalties so that hurt personally. This race was so chaotic and there were so many penalties and incidents — it was crazy in the driving seat and out.”

***The sister No. 88 machine incurred a five-second stop-and-hold penalty early on before bouncing back until getting another stop-and-hold sanction for pit lane speeding that dropped Stefano Gattuso, Giammarco Levorato and Logan Sargeant out of contention. The car then retired in the closing stages with an issue at the front.

***Sargeant said: “This was our weekend to win for sure and unfortunately things unravelled and didn’t work out, but that’s racing. After a tough season, we wanted to finish the season strong and being unable to do that was disappointing.”

***Richard Mille waved the Italian flag to signal the cars off the grid, in his final race as FIA Endurance Commission President. Mille has been forced to relinquish his role due to a FIA-imposed 75-year-old age limit.

***WEC reported a weekend attendance figure of 75,181 spectators, up from the 65,000 figure from the series’ last visit to the ‘Temple of Speed’ in 2023. This year’s event served as a replacement round for the 8 Hours of Bahrain due to the geopolitical instability in the Middle East.

***The WEC is currently still scheduled to kick off its 2027 campaign in Qatar on March 25-27, which will see the highly anticipated Hypercar debuts from Ford and McLaren.

Stephen Lickorish contributed to this report

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John