Cadillac’s Third-Driver Seat Just Produced Another Full-Timer. That’s Not an Accident.

Most teams treat the third-driver seat as a spare tire: bolted on for the long races, ignored the rest of the year. Action Express Racing treats it as a waiting room for the championship car. For the second time since 2024, the driver who spent his apprenticeship as the No. 31 Cadillac’s endurance hired gun is being handed a full-time seat — and this time the car he’s joining is the one that just won everything.

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Cadillac confirmed on Oct. 15 that it will again run three V-Series.R prototypes in IMSA’s GTP class in 2027, split across Cadillac Whelen (Action Express) and Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing. The only change to any full-season lineup: Frederik Vesti moves up to partner reigning GTP champion Jack Aitken in the No. 31, while Earl Bamber slides into an IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup role. A fourth driver for the No. 31 at the Rolex 24 has not been named.

Over at Wayne Taylor Racing, nothing moves. And for that team, nothing moving is the headline.

The 2027 Cadillac GTP lineup

• No. 31 Cadillac Whelen (Action Express Racing): Jack Aitken, Frederik Vesti full-season; Earl Bamber for Endurance Cup rounds; fourth Rolex 24 driver TBA
• No. 10 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing: Ricky Taylor, Filipe Albuquerque full-season; Will Stevens at the three longest Endurance Cup races
• No. 40 Cadillac Wayne Taylor Racing: Jordan Taylor, Louis Deletraz full-season; Norman Nato at the three longest Endurance Cup races

Action Express has turned the understudy role into a system

Aitken’s route to the 2026 title started in that same third seat. He joined the No. 31 as its third driver, was part of the lineup that won the Twelve Hours of Sebring alongside Pipo Derani and Alexander Sims, and stepped up to full-time when Sims went back to Corvette’s GT program. In his third full season, he clinched the GTP drivers’ title at Road Atlanta simply by taking the start, finishing 161 points clear of Porsche’s Laurin Heinrich.

Vesti is running the same play, and the résumé similarities are uncanny. Both were Formula 2 race winners who reached the Formula 1 reserve-driver tier — Aitken with Williams, which yielded one Grand Prix start at the 2020 Sakhir GP; Vesti with Mercedes, which yielded none. Both then rebuilt their careers in sports cars. Vesti’s first IMSA start came in LMP2 with Tower Motorsport at the 2024 Petit Le Mans, before two seasons as the No. 31’s third driver.

What makes the promotion low-risk is how much of the job he’s already done. IMSA says Vesti has raced at eight of the nine GTP venues. In 2026 he subbed for Bamber at Long Beach and finished second with Aitken, and he was back in the car for the team’s win at Watkins Glen. The lone hole on his map is Detroit — a 100-minute street race on June 4–5, and, conveniently, a circuit where the No. 31 won in 2026 with Aitken and Bamber. He’ll have a teammate who knows exactly where the walls are.

The bigger takeaway is structural. Action Express isn’t buying a proven champion from outside; it’s promoting from within and keeping the outgoing full-timer in the building. Bamber, a two-time overall Le Mans winner, doesn’t leave — he becomes the endurance-race insurance policy. That keeps the championship-winning trio together for the five Endurance Cup rounds — the long races where a third driver of known quality matters most — while giving Vesti the full nine-race calendar he needs to fight for a title in his own right. Team boss Gary Nelson framed it simply: same three drivers, different job titles.

The risk is in the sprint races. In 2026, Aitken’s title was built with Bamber as his regular partner; in 2027, the four sprint rounds — Long Beach, Laguna Seca, Detroit and Indianapolis — become Aitken-and-Vesti affairs. Vesti’s Long Beach runner-up suggests the pairing works. Whether it holds up at Laguna Seca and Indianapolis — won in 2026 by JDC-Miller’s customer Porsche and BMW M Team WRT, respectively, with the No. 31 not on top at either — is the open question. (Porsche has its own argument about how that balance plays out, as its BoP complaint earlier this year showed.)

The No. 31 Cadillac Whelen crew celebrates the 2026 IMSA GTP titles at Road Atlanta. Every driver on that stage is back in 2027 — just not in the same roles. Photo: General Motors

Wayne Taylor Racing finally gets a boring winter

For Wayne Taylor Racing, standing still is a luxury it hasn’t had in years. The team added a second car between 2023 and 2024, switched from Acura to Cadillac for 2025, then had to absorb the V-Series.R’s evolution update and Michelin’s new prototype tire for 2026. Every offseason has been a rebuild.

Now the driver pairings, car, team and tire package all carry over. Ricky Taylor and Filipe Albuquerque begin a seventh straight season together in the No. 10, a partnership dating back to 2021; Jordan Taylor and Louis Deletraz start their fourth in the No. 40.

The results justify patience, if only just. The No. 10’s win at Road America in 2026 ended a winless run of more than two years, and the No. 40 finished third that day. WTR added podiums at Detroit and Petit Le Mans. Ricky Taylor’s own description of the drought was blunt: the team’s confidence had been “challenged a lot.” A full winter of testing on a known package is the first chance this group has had to iterate rather than react.

One detail worth noting on the endurance roster: WTR’s extra drivers — Will Stevens in the No. 10 and Norman Nato in the No. 40 — are listed for the three longest Endurance Cup races, meaning Daytona, Sebring and Petit Le Mans. That leaves the six-hour races at Watkins Glen and Road America as two-driver efforts, a different approach from Action Express’s full-endurance third driver. Wayne Taylor said he will lean on what Nato brings from the FIA World Endurance Championship, where Cadillac’s Hypercar program races the same basic LMDh platform.

Ten years of Cadillac prototypes, by the numbers

2027 marks a decade since the Cadillac DPi-V.R debuted in 2017. In that time, Cadillac has collected 36 IMSA DPi/GTP victories — the most of any manufacturer — and 115 podiums (85 in DPi, 30 in GTP). It also enters the offseason on a run of 10 consecutive races with at least one car on the podium, a streak GM says dates back to Indianapolis in 2025.

The 2026 haul included the GTP manufacturer title (Cadillac’s fifth top-class IMSA manufacturer crown), the team title for Action Express, and the drivers’ title for Aitken. But the wins were spread thin: two for the No. 31 (Detroit and Watkins Glen) and one for the No. 10. Cadillac won the championship on consistency, not dominance — which makes keeping the same people in the same cars a logical bet.

What to watch heading to Daytona

• The fourth No. 31 seat. Who joins Aitken, Vesti and Bamber for the Rolex 24 will say a lot about whether Cadillac wants a veteran endurance closer or another prospect to slot into the understudy pipeline.
• Vesti in sprint races. His first full IMSA season will be judged on the four short rounds, not the enduros he already knows.
• WTR’s stability dividend. If the No. 10 and No. 40 cars start 2027 closer to the front, it’ll be the clearest proof that the team’s problem was change, not people.
• Porsche’s response. Heinrich is now confirmed full-season with Porsche Penske Motorsport for 2027, so the driver who chased Aitken all year will have factory backing from the opening race.

The 2027 season opens with the Rolex 24 At Daytona, Jan. 30–31.

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