Whilst the story of the 2026 Hypercar season has evolved into being the return to form of Toyota, which has won four races to-date and secured both titles, LMGT3 has produced a remarkably open season-long battle in this year’s FIA World Endurance Championship.
Seven different cars have won across the first seven races, and over half the field could end Sunday’s 6 Hours of Monza in the top two in the championship. Of those, four still remain in title contention.
The #92 The Bend Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R LMGT3 Evo, #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R and #69 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo all enter this weekend with a small, but possible, chance of overhauling the #33 TF Sport Corvette Z06 LMGT3.R and lone Drivers’ Championship leader Jonny Edgar.
If anything, the competitive nature of LMGT3 has proven to be the detriment of its title fight. The #33 Corvette moved into the lead with victory at the double-points 24 Hours of Le Mans, a race where the majority of its closest rivals struggled, and the lack of consistency from anyone in the field means that, despite not returning to the rostrum since, its 32-point lead has only been reduced to 18.
22-year-old Edgar, therefore, only requires a top-five finish this weekend to become the FIA WEC’s first solo champion since Richard Lietz triumphed in LMGTE Pro in 2015.
“It’s been a good season,” Edgar said. “We started strong with a podium at Imola and then obviously Le Mans was a highlight from the team side but also personally. To do those final stints and win the race was really special.
“Also for the championship, Le Mans is pretty huge with double-points. Leaving Le Mans onwards we knew it was about picking up consistent points where we could, which we’ve done a pretty good job of. The field has been so close that no one since Le Mans has really gotten big points at every race. It’s very mixed. One car will do well at one race and at the next one it gets flipped on its head. So we’re still in a strong position for the weekend.”
Following victory in Barcelona, the #92 Porsche of Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera and Lietz has emerged as Edgar’s most likely challenger, as the trio aim to keep Manthey’s perfect record of LMGT3 titles alive.
“For us, Barcelona was a really good one, after difficult races in Fuji and Austin we wanted to bounce back and in the end it was a really good weekend for us which has put us back in the fight for the championship,” Pera told DSC.
“The gap is quite big, but we have nothing to lose. We will do our maximum to try to win the race. We’re not thinking about it too much at the moment, we are just doing our best to prepare for the weekend the best way possible.”
Aside from its 18-point deficit, the German squad has two further factors which stacks against this weekend. Firstly, the #92 Porsche is running with 30 kilograms of success ballast, which is 12kg more than anyone else in LMGT3. Secondly, Bronze-rated driver Shahin has never raced at Monza before, a factor the team has partially mitigated through a mid-season test.
“We tested here in August,” Pera stated. “It was a bit warmer, but it was a nice two days of testing. We got used to the track and did a really good job; the team got a lot of data.”
Racing Team Turkey by TF’s Peter Dempsey, Salih Yoluc and Charlie Eastwood enter Monza in the uncomfortable position of knowing that, almost uncertainly, their title prospects depend on misfortune striking the sister Corvette.
With a 22-point deficit, the #34 Z06 LMGT3.R is in a must-win position, and as such Dempsey’s focus is on preventing LMGT3 from becoming the first-ever FIA WEC category not to have a repeat winner during a season by finding the top step of the podium for the second time this year on Sunday.
“We understand it’s a long shot, but all we can do is do the best job we can and try to win the race for ourselves,” he said.
“And if the championship comes with that, great. But if not, it is what it is. Plan B is if we’re not in a position to win, we want to finish second [in the championship], and we want to make sure we have the #33 car win the championship because for the team that’s most important.”
TF Sport’s position, with two cars in the top three, means that it’s in a strong place to win its first FIA WEC Teams’ title since 2022. The performance across both of its cars is also ominous for 2027, when the LMGT3 Teams’ Championship switches to being awarded to the outfit with the best points total across two entries.
Were these rules in place this season, TF Sport would have a comfortable 34-point lead over Manthey entering this finale.
“It’s incredible,” Dempsey said of the combined success across both cars.
“Both [cars] have won races. For both cars to have multiple podiums and to show the consistency we’ve had as a team across a lot of difficult events is incredible, and just shows how good a job TF Sport has done.”
The final mathematical contender is the #69 BMW of Dan Harper, Parker Thompson and Anthony McIntosh, which at 26 points back, requires a perfect weekend and therefore could fall out of contention as soon as qualifying.
The Team WRT-entered machine is the perfect encapsulation of the aforementioned themes of the title battle this year: a lack of consistency and the importance of Le Mans. Across the season, it has finished on all three steps of the podium, but three non-scores, including a costly retirement at the world’s greatest endurance rac, have dented its chances.
“Its frustrating because of how many weekends we’ve been nowhere, and if we’d scraped some points there, we would be right in the fight,” Harper reflected.
“I think especially Le Mans being double points, if we score even half of what the Corvette did there, then we’re right in the fight. It is what it is.”
Despite this disappointment, the BMW M factory driver has enjoyed his “rollercoaster” debut FIA WEC campaign, with a clear desire to return in the future.
“I’ve loved my first experience of WEC,” he said. “I’ve been very fortunate over the last six years with BMW to have raced in a lot of series, and I’ve enjoyed WEC. It’s a world championship, so there’s no other series that can offer that, and it has the Le Mans 24 Hours, which is the biggest event in the world. For sure I want to come back, there’s unfinished business.
“We’ve had big highs like Imola, the [full-season] debut for all three of us and taking the win, and podiums in Sao Paulo and Barcelona, which we went thinking these are going to be the two weekends we’re going to struggle the most, so they felt like wins.
“There’s been times where it was tough, but we’ve always bounced back, and hopefully we can end this year on a high note.”
With their rivals downplaying their chances, the onus therefore falls on the shoulders of Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating to deliver on Sunday, as – one way or another – the championship expectation which has been gradually building since June will be released as the sun sets over the Autodromo Nazionale Monza.
Images courtesy of DPPI
