The No. 31 Cadillac Whelen crew celebrates the 2026 IMSA GTP titles at Road Atlanta. Photo: General Motors
The most interesting line in Cadillac’s 2026 Le Mans paperwork is the one that isn’t there. The team that would go on to win the IMSA GTP championship wasn’t on the entry list.
The Automobile Club de l’Ouest gave Cadillac Racing three invitations for last June’s 24 Hours: the Nos. 12 and 38 for Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA, and the No. 101 for Wayne Taylor Racing. No Action Express car. A year earlier, Cadillac’s own announcement had the No. 311 Whelen Cadillac back at La Sarthe for a third straight year, one of four Cadillacs. By October, Jack Aitken and the No. 31 crew had clinched the GTP team and driver titles at Petit Le Mans, the manufacturer crown too, and our look at that title covers how it got done.
Here is the part that amuses me more than it should. The Le Mans listing for the two JOTA cars names Aitken, Earl Bamber, Sébastien Bourdais, Alex Lynn, Norman Nato and Will Stevens between them. Aitken and Bamber are Action Express drivers. The team stayed off the entry list; two of its drivers did not. Nothing Cadillac or the ACO published explains the gap, so I won’t invent a reason for it.
Le Mans runs on invitations, not points
The two JOTA cars got automatic invitations because JOTA is running the full World Endurance Championship. The Wayne Taylor entry was an invited car, and so was Action Express’s No. 311 in 2025. That is the whole mechanism. An IMSA team with a championship trophy and a Le Mans-ready V-Series.R still needs the ACO to say yes, and Cadillac’s allocation went from four invitations in 2025 to three in 2026.
The 2027 race is set for 9 to 13 June as round five of the championship, and the ACO already lists nine Hypercar manufacturers: Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Ferrari, Ford, Genesis, McLaren, Peugeot and Toyota. My read, and it is only a read: more brands asking for places makes a second IMSA-based Cadillac harder to justify, not easier. McLaren’s Le Mans lineup is a reminder that the grid is filling with factory-backed newcomers.
Cadillac is building one driver pool, not two
Cadillac’s 2027 JOTA roster is Antonio Félix da Costa, Ricky Taylor, Aitken, Bamber, Nato and Stevens. Aitken and Bamber race for Action Express, Taylor, Nato and Stevens for Wayne Taylor Racing. Only da Costa comes from outside the IMSA family, which is why our breakdown of the WEC lineup called it five-sixths IMSA.
Now look at the No. 31 for 2027. IMSA confirmed Frederik Vesti as a full-timer alongside Aitken, with Bamber moving to an endurance-race role, and the fourth Rolex 24 seat still open. That third-seat pipeline leaves Vesti as the only regular on the car without a listed Cadillac WEC seat. If an Action Express Le Mans car does materialize, he is the obvious name to hand it to. That is inference from the published rosters, not something anyone has said.
Why Cadillac might want a third team car anyway
At the 2025 race the No. 311 was the quickest Cadillac in the ACO’s top-speed reference at 345.6 km/h, ahead of JOTA’s No. 12 at 343.4 and behind the Ferrari 499P at 349. The 2026 V-Series.R aero update then removed the front dive planes and winglets and reshaped a lower rear wing, all aimed at peak speed. A car from a different team with different data is cheap extra information for a manufacturer chasing an overall win, which is exactly how GM’s Eric Warren describes the goal: to “continue building on Cadillac’s endurance racing legacy.”
What to watch
Gary Nelson, Action Express’s general manager, talked about defending titles and a strong Rolex 24 in the 2027 lineup announcement. Le Mans did not come up. Last year’s Cadillac invitations went public in February, so the ACO’s entry list is the document to watch. Until it names a car for Action Express, a return is a plausible storyline and nothing more.
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