{"id":3453,"date":"2026-10-05T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-10-05T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/?p=3453"},"modified":"2026-10-04T16:05:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-04T19:05:14","slug":"why-jack-aitken-is-imsas-sole-2026-gtp-champion-despite-sharing-his-cadillac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/endurance\/why-jack-aitken-is-imsas-sole-2026-gtp-champion-despite-sharing-his-cadillac\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Jack Aitken is IMSA\u2019s sole 2026 GTP champion despite sharing his Cadillac"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">News Summary<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Jack Aitken secured the 2026 IMSA GTP Drivers\u2019 Championship at Petit Le Mans.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti did not contest the same full-season programme.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Cadillac also won the manufacturers\u2019 title, while the No. 31 Whelen entry secured the teams\u2019 championship.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Jack Aitken became <strong>the sole winner of the 2026 IMSA GTP Drivers\u2019 Championship<\/strong>, despite sharing the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R with Earl Bamber and Frederik Vesti. The explanation lies in their different race programmes: sharing a car does not automatically give its drivers identical championship totals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aitken contested the complete GTP season. Bamber missed Long Beach, while Vesti\u2019s programme covered the endurance races and an additional appearance as Bamber\u2019s replacement in California.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Those differences separated their individual points totals. The success of the No. 31 remained a collective achievement, but <strong>only Aitken accumulated the points required to claim the full-season drivers\u2019 crown<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Why Bamber\u2019s Long Beach absence mattered<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bamber normally partnered Aitken in the Cadillac, but was unavailable for the April Long Beach round because of his World Endurance Championship commitments. Vesti stepped into the seat alongside Aitken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The substitution preserved the No. 31 car\u2019s participation and allowed Aitken to continue scoring. Bamber, however, could not receive driver points for an event he did not contest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Vesti collected points from his own appearances, including Long Beach, but did not compete throughout the complete GTP schedule. Consequently, neither teammate matched Aitken\u2019s season-long total.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table\"><table class=\"has-fixed-layout\"><thead><tr><th>Driver<\/th><th>Programme in the No. 31 Cadillac<\/th><th>Championship consequence<\/th><\/tr><\/thead><tbody><tr><td>Jack Aitken<\/td><td>Complete GTP season<\/td><td>Secured the full-season drivers\u2019 title<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Earl Bamber<\/td><td>Regular partner, absent at Long Beach<\/td><td>Missed that round\u2019s driver points<\/td><\/tr><tr><td>Frederik Vesti<\/td><td>Endurance races and Long Beach<\/td><td>Scored from a partial-season programme<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Qualifying meant Aitken only needed to start<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aitken arrived at Road Atlanta leading Laurin Heinrich by 147 points. His fourth place in <a href=\"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/endurance\/petit-le-mans-qualifying-acura-locks-out-front-row-as-aitken-moves-to-brink-of-imsa-title\/?utm_source=chatgpt.com\">Petit Le Mans qualifying<\/a>, ahead of Heinrich in seventh, increased that advantage to 151.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With 11 GTP entries, the points guaranteed by starting the finale were sufficient to make Aitken\u2019s position unassailable. <strong>The title was secured when the Cadillac took the green flag<\/strong>, rather than at the conclusion of the ten-hour race.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cYou\u2019ve definitely got one eye on the race start, and the other was just hoping that the car started and got out of pit lane,\u201d Aitken said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The unusual timing removed the championship uncertainty before the race had properly developed, although the team still had a separate objective: winning Petit Le Mans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Aitken credits the teammates who helped him win<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aitken acknowledged that the individual championship did not fully reflect the shared effort behind it. Bamber and Vesti contributed to the performances that put him in a position to secure the title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI couldn\u2019t have done it without my teammates, and it does feel a little bit bittersweet that they all couldn\u2019t be sharing it with me,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The result also delivered <strong>the GTP Teams\u2019 Championship to the No. 31 Whelen Cadillac entry and the Manufacturers\u2019 Championship to Cadillac<\/strong>. Those awards recognise different competitors from the individual drivers\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Aitken\u2019s achievement made him the first solo champion in the championship\u2019s top-class lineage since J\u00f6rg Bergmeister won the 2006 GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series title. It was not the first solo title in American sports-car racing history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Championship and Petit Le Mans victory go to different competitors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Porsche Penske Motorsport won the season finale with its No. 6 Porsche 963, driven by Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That race victory was separate from Aitken\u2019s full-season championship. Likewise, the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup has its own standings and was won in GTP by Felipe Nasr, Julien Andlauer and Heinrich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>GRANDE PR\u00caMIO<\/strong> will continue to follow the developments across <a href=\"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/endurance\/\">endurance racing<\/a> as teams prepare for the 2027 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earl Bamber missed Long Beach and Frederik Vesti contested a partial programme, leaving Aitken with a different points total despite their shared success in the No. 31 Cadillac.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1020315660,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"42wp_featured_image_caption":"Jack Aitken","42wp_featured_image_credits":"Cadillac Racing","42wp_featured_video":"","42wp_featured_image_hidden":false,"42wp_authors_list":[{"id":48,"location":""}],"footnotes":"","42wp_breaking_news":false},"categories":[46],"tags":[],"42wp_author":[48],"class_list":["post-3453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-endurance","42wp_author-giovani-danjo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3453"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3454,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3453\/revisions\/3454"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1020315660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3453"},{"taxonomy":"42wp_author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grandepremio.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/42wp_author?post=3453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}