The No. 38 Cadillac of Jack Aitken, Sebastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber led 181 of the 191 laps at Monza on Sunday and won by 5.607 seconds from the No. 36 Alpine of Victor Martins and Jules Gounon. The world title went to a car a lap behind it. Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa crossed the line 11th in the No. 8 Toyota and were classified 10th once the No. 007 Aston Martin's penalties were applied, which was worth one point. They arrived 17 points clear of the sister No. 7 and left 18 clear, 115 to 97, after the No. 7 was classified 11th and scored nothing.
Three weeks earlier the same two cars had finished first and second at Barcelona. On Sunday both were a lap down and, in Sportscar365's phrase, never a factor. Buemi also took a five-second penalty for spinning the No. 17 Genesis at the first chicane. "We didn't have the pace for a win today, but what an amazing season for everyone!" Hartley said, in the FIA's report. The No. 7 won Le Mans in June; the No. 8 took the world title.
Aitken started third and moved past pole-sitting Ferrari on the opening tour. He then took the lead from Daniel Juncadella's Genesis on the run to the Parabolica on lap seven. Juncadella had gone side by side with Ferrari's Miguel Molina into the first chicane, cut it, and drew a five-second penalty. The Genesis would not last the day: Paul-Loup Chatin stopped with an electrical shutdown at the start of the third hour, bringing out a Virtual Safety Car under which Bourdais took over the Cadillac.
Bourdais held the lead through the middle of the race against Martins and BMW's Sheldon van der Linde, who jumped the Alpine at the end of a Full Course Yellow near half distance. It came in what Motorsport Week reports as his last race with JOTA. "It's always bittersweet moments, but there's definitely no better way to end," he said. The FIA counts it as Cadillac's first win of the season and the first for this crew together, and JOTA has now taken a race win in 12 consecutive campaigns. Bamber, who finished the job, credited the machinery: "Everybody at JOTA and Cadillac Racing has put a lot of effort in and worked so hard, and the car was faultless."
Twenty minutes into the fourth hour Charles Milesi, who had set the race's fastest lap on lap 91, put the sister Alpine into the Parabolica barriers, ending its race and bringing the fourth Virtual Safety Car of the afternoon. When the race resumed Martins took van der Linde at the first chicane for second. From there the race for the win was Bamber against Martins, and Sportscar365 has the Alpine cutting a gap of more than 10 seconds through the final stint on fuel saving. Bamber's account has the margin running out to eight and coming back by three or four. "We pulled away eight seconds, and then they came back to us three or four, but managed to get the number," he said, in Motorsport Week's report.
Alpine's second place came on what the FIA calls its "swansong in the series". Ferrari's home finale began with Antonio Fuoco's pole and ended with the No. 51 as the marque's best car; Sportscar365 says it was the only 499P to escape sanction for low tyre pressures in the opening hours. The final manufacturers' table reads Toyota 215, BMW 172, Ferrari 150, Cadillac 143.
Aston Martin's Valkyrie finished third on the road and did not keep it. Tom Gamble had passed the No. 51 Ferrari in the final 20 minutes of the race. After the flag the stewards added 20 seconds for tyre pressure below the limit, which denied Aston Martin its first Hypercar podium and handed the place to Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi in the Ferrari. A second decision added 145 seconds for exceeding the permitted energy per stint, and the No. 007 was classified 12th, outside the points. Twice in the opening hours the car had tried an offset strategy and twice a Virtual Safety Car had undone it.
BMW's No. 20 fell out of the podium fight in the final hours. Dive Bomb has it running two tyres over 100 laps old and Robin Frijns running off at Ascari twice, with a brake complaint on the radio, dropping the car down the order before the last stops, which came with 45 minutes left and changed nothing at the head of the field. Gamble was short of fuel in that final stint, by the same account, and still got through. Peugeot's No. 94 of Loic Duval, Theo Pourchaire and Malthe Jakobsen crossed the line fifth and was classified fourth, the French marque's best result of the season, with the No. 15 BMW fifth. Contact between Jakobsen and Cadillac's Alex Lynn on the penultimate lap put Lynn into the barriers; the stewards held Lynn wholly responsible for squeezing the Peugeot, and the No. 12 went unclassified. Race control kept that one under double yellows rather than a Full Course Yellow.
Buemi and Hartley now have five world titles each, the FIA WEC says, and Hirakawa three. Motorsport Week's count has the trio as the first crew in the championship to win three drivers' titles together, after 2022 and 2023. Mike Conway, who won Le Mans in June and whose retirement the FIA WEC announced on 6 October, ended his world championship career at Monza, 12th across the line and classified 11th in the No. 7.
LMGT3 finished closer than the Hypercars, and it ended Porsche's run of category titles. Richard Lietz brought the No. 92 Manthey Porsche home 0.270 seconds ahead of Eduardo Barrichello's Heart of Racing Aston Martin, on the Austrian's 100th WEC appearance, with Yasser Shahin and Riccardo Pera. Third for the No. 33 TF Sport Corvette of Jonny Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating was enough for the class titles: the teams' prize for TF Sport and the drivers' for Edgar.
Attendance across the weekend was 75,181, the organisers said.