As we enter what could be labeled the “second half” of this heavily modified 2026 WEC season with the Lone Star Le Mans in Austin, there is still the opportunity to look ahead to next season and forecast some of the potential changes that could be coming for teams across the grid.
The rumors have continued to grow this weekend down at COTA, and a new report indicates that through the initiation of Cadillac Racing, both Wayne Taylor Racing and Hertz Team Jota are prepping for a reworking of their driver lineups for 2027, with the focus being a unified roster between the two teams in both IMSA and the WEC
As Stephen Lickorish of SportsCar365.com put it pretty clearly, Cadillac’s aim for the V-Series.R is to “field the same drivers in both the WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship,” which came in response to the news of Sebastian Bourdais’ coming exit from Team Jota.
Bourdais himself confirmed the news, remarking that Cadillac’s push to unify their lineups in a ‘One Cadillac’ approach across both competitions starting next season “kind of puts me out of a job.”
The Frenchman has been quite frank about his future in the last two weeks or so in speaking to multiple media outlets and getting it on the record that although he is set to exit the Hypercar ranks at the end of the year, he has no plans of retiring or moving on from the highest levels of sportscar racing.
So, we know that Bourdais is already departing from the frame, and it appears that another Jota driver will be moving on as well – Alex Lynn.
SC365.com added that in addition to Bourdais, the 32-year-old Lynn is prepared to move on from HTJ at the end of the season with a move to McLaren understood to have been agreed to in principle at this time.
Current Peugeot driver Malthe Jakobsen is also believed to be going with Lynn to McLaren, giving the British marquee four drivers out of six needed for their debut of the MCL-HY, with the original confirmations of Mikkel Jensen and Laurens Vanthoor already previously revealed by the brand.
A lingering neck injury and the lengthy recovery process has forced Lynn to miss what will be the first six rounds of the WEC season, with his projected return for the final two rounds at Monza and Barcelona set to come.
Due to Lynn’s injury and the revised schedule from the conflict in the Middle East, we’ve seen Cadillac and HTJ look to the services of Louis Deletraz for the rounds at Spa and Le Mans, while Ricky Taylor is set for his Jota debut this weekend. It appears that the presence of Ricky Taylor, and for that matter Deletraz, could be more than just guest appearances.
SC365.com reported that Taylor is “likely” to race with Jota full-time in 2027, and due to the fact that although there are some close calls with races being held on consecutive weekends next season, as far as GTP/Hypercar clashes are concerned, there is currently no race weekend in 2027 where prototypes in IMSA will race on the same weekend as any WEC round.
If WTR and Jota were to unify their driver lineups, it would be a repeat of what BMW and Team WRT opted for in 2026 when they implemented a much more synchronized effort between their entries in both series as WRT took over the GTP program from Team RLL.
And just like how BMW dealt with a lack of results from previous seasons, the synergized effort would come after a period of missed chances for both Wayne Taylor Racing in IMSA and Jota in the WEC, most recently the missed opportunities at Spa, Le Mans and Interlagos to bring home landmark victories due to errors suffered via driver penalties, hiccups during pit stop sequences or misjudgments on race strategy.
If it’s (at least) Bourdais and Lynn out and Ricky Taylor in, the next question to ask is who else will remain on the roster between the teams, and who else could see themselves dropped?
For the Lone Star Le Mans, the No. 12 car will see Norman Nato, Will Stevens and Ricky Taylor group up, while the No. 38 will have their usual trio of Earl Bamber, Sebastian Bourdais and Jack Aitken.
Perhaps the No. 12 car would remain the same, leaving the machinations of the No. 38 to be fully reworked considering that Action Express Racing are returning to Le Mans next season in the place of Wayne Taylor’s entry, and with Bamber and Aitken serving as the dynamic duo of the No. 31 in IMSA maybe they would pass on racing for both Cadillac teams in 2027.
The drawback in that scenario however is seeing arguably two of the best prototype drivers going right now in Aitken and Bamber depart their driver stables to be replaced, so would the alterations be worth it at that point?
Overall, who knows how it’ll ultimately play out, but either way it seems the ball is already rolling downhill for Cadillac to revamp their assault on both the WEC and IMSA, and for starters Bourdais and Lynn have been the casualties in their overhauling.