WEC Monza 2026 after 5 hours: Cadillac holds off Alpine

Earl Bamber kept the #38 Cadillac ahead of Victor Martins’s #36 Alpine late in the fifth hour of the 2026 FIA WEC 6 Hours of Monza. Antonio Giovinazzi moved the #51 Ferrari into third after the latest round of Hypercar stops. The LMGT3 lead had changed hands between the #92 Porsche and the #77 Ford, and both cars were back in the pits by the 15:46 CET reporting cutoff.

Bamber keeps Cadillac ahead after the Parabolica crash

Jack Aitken had taken the lead from Genesis in the first hour. The #19 Genesis later retired from second, and Sébastien Bourdais reached halfway with the #20 BMW seven tenths behind. Bourdais briefly surrendered the lead to Sheldon van der Linde during the next pit cycle, then moved back ahead once the BMW stopped.

The fourth hour changed the fight. Charles Milesi lost control of the #35 Alpine at Parabolica and hit the barriers. He got out of the car and the #35 retired. Race control called a Virtual Safety Car followed by a Safety Car while the barriers were repaired. Cadillac used the neutralisation to put Bamber in the #38. At the restart, Martins passed van der Linde for second, keeping Alpine in the lead fight in the A424’s final factory WEC race.

Bamber led Martins by just over two seconds after four hours and 117 laps. Martins closed to around a second before both cars stopped again in the fifth hour. The Cadillac came out ahead of the Alpine, and Bamber returned to the overall lead once the off-sequence #83 AF Corse Ferrari made its stop. The #83 had earlier lost a wheel and dropped out of the top ten.

Giovinazzi takes third as the #50 recovers

Robin Frijns was third after the stops, but a mistake at Ascari opened the door for Giovinazzi. The Ferrari passed the #20 BMW, and Malthe Jakobsen then took fourth from Frijns in the #94 Peugeot. Antonio Fuoco was sixth in the #50 Ferrari after the pit cycle, having passed Kamui Kobayashi to get back into the top ten around the four-hour mark. It was a recovery for the Hyperpole-winning 499P, which had fallen to the back of the Hypercar field after early tyre-pressure trouble.

The Toyota title contenders were still outside the top ten late in the hour, with the #7 running immediately ahead of the #8. That order favoured the #8 crew of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryō Hirakawa, who arrived with a 17-point lead over their team-mates.

Porsche and Ford trade the LMGT3 lead

Riccardo Pera took over at the front in the #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche after the #88 Ford and #23 Aston Martin stopped in the fourth hour. The #88, which had led at halfway, then received a 15-second stop-and-go penalty for speeding in the pit lane. Pera led at four hours, ahead of Ben Tuck in the sister #77 Ford and Jonny Edgar in the #33 TF Sport Corvette.

Tuck caught and passed Pera in the fifth hour. A Full Course Yellow for debris interrupted the race shortly afterwards, and the Ford later stopped for a replacement nose. The #92 also pitted around 15:46, with Richard Lietz taking over from Pera. Their stops left the class order in flux heading towards the final hour.

Edgar had come into Monza 18 points ahead of the #92’s drivers. A Porsche win would require the #33 Corvette to finish sixth or better for Edgar to retain the lead in the standings.