The three Alpine drivers play an attacking race, take advantage of the problems of Glickenhaus and overtake both Toyota, which complete the overall podium. Splendid second place for the Iron Dames in LMGTE Am.

Matthieu Vaxiviere, Nicolas Lapierre and André Negrão triumph in the second edition of the 6 Hours of Monza of the World Endurance Championship , giving the Alpine ELF Team a valuable championship victory. The race is decided after an exciting fight with both Toyota and three cars to fight for the victory until the end, including overtaking, counter-overtaking and strategy games. The outcome of the race seemed already written after the first three hours, when the Glickenhaus of Olivier Pla, Romain Dumas and Luis Felipe Derani, dominant in qualifying on Saturday, had an advantage of almost a minute over all rivals and was in total control . But first a drive through and then a turbo problem forced the pilots of the Glickenhaus 007 LMH to abandon the race prematurely, opening the dance to a close fight for the conquest of the top step of the podium.

The three Alpine drivers had the merit of competing in a race that was always on the attack, in which they were often forced to chase the two cars of the Japanese team, without ever letting go of their exhausts. The decisive episodes occurred in the last third of the race, when Vaxiviere proved his strength by first overtaking the # 8 car of Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa, who finished the 6 Hours in second place overall after an attempt comeback on the winners in the final, and then Kamui Kobayashi, at the wheel of the other Toyota GR010 – Hybrid together with Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez. In this second overtaking, there was a contact between Vaxiviere and Kobayashi, with the Japanese driver who was forced to stop in the pits for a puncture. Toyota # 7 thus finished in third place.

Bitter debut instead for Peugeot in the first real test bench in a competition for the two 9×8 Hypercars that the French team presented in the Temple of Speed. After having encountered technical problems already in qualifying, which ended in third from last place on the grid, the # 93 of Paul Di Resta, Mikkel Jensen and Jean-Eric Vergne crashed at the entrance to the pitlane after a few minutes and was forced to retire. The same fate also for teammates Loic Duval, Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter, who at least managed to cover more than three and a half hours of racing and provide some chronometric data to the team for the next rounds, without ever being able to keep up with the pace. of the former.

A result not at all obvious even among the LMP2 , a class in which several teams took the lead in several moments of the race. In the end, Rui Andrade, Norman Nato and Ferdinand Habsburg crossed the line in front of everyone on their Oreca 07 – Gibson of Realteam by WRT. Roberto Gonzalez, Antonio Felix da Costa and William Stevens (Jota), leader of the drivers’ classification and who still played an extraordinary race, tried to take away from him the first place, recovering from the 38th and last position of the starting grid and coming one step away from category success. Vector Sport took the last place on the class podium with the # 10 car driven by Nico Müller, Ryan Cullen and Sebastien Bourdais.

The dispute between the LMGTE Pro was also resolved only two minutes from the end, and it was not a pleasant finish for Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina’s Ferrari 488 GTE Evo. Leaders until then, when there were only a few kilometers to go to the checkered flag, the two were forced to refuel in the pit lane due to a mistake by the team, which had not correctly calculated the amount of fuel needed to reach the finish. To celebrate is Corvette Racing, with the Chevrolet Corvette C8.R of the Anglo-American duo formed by Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner, who see an unexpected success served on a silver platter. Third place for the other Ferrari competing in the category, that of Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado, fighting for victory as much as their team mates after starting in front of everyone in their class, but also penalized by an error to the low wall which cost him a penalty.

On the other hand, a superlative performance both in qualifying and in the race was not enough for the Iron Dames to win over all the competitors in the LMGTE Am class. After a surprising pole for Sarah Bovy and a first place confirmed for a large slice of the race also by Rahel Frey and Michelle Gatting, the girls behind the wheel of the Ferrari 488 GTE Evo saw a historic triumph blow in Monza from the Porsche 911 RSR – 19 of Dempsey-Proton Racing, driven by Christian Ried and Britons Sebastian Priaulx and Harry Tincknell. Crucial was a longer than expected pit stop for the Dames, who tried to mend the tear in the final without success and finishing second. Behind them were Mikkel Pedersen, Nicolas Leutwiler and the Italian Matteo Cairoli, in another of the five Porsches in the race.

For the Temple of Speed it was a breathtaking weekend not only on the track but also in support of the race, thanks to the many activations organized for the public who followed the event live. An excellent turnout of fans affected the stands, with the fans in the central grandstand privileged spectators of the pre-race musical performances of the Italian Bagutti Orchestra, which sang the Italian anthem just before the start of the race. The fans also entertained themselves in the Fan Area prepared for the race, with the presence of the famous TV presenter Diletta Leotta and the activations of Radio 105, which helped to give even more color to the three days.

After hosting the World Endurance Championship, which also saw the legendary Goodyear airship return to fly over the skies of Brianza exactly like last year, the Autodromo Nazionale Monza is preparing for the most important sporting event of the year. In fact, between 9 and 11 September it will be time for the Formula 1 Pirelli Italian Grand Prix 2022, with Ferrari hoping to achieve success in the Temple of Speed in front of the tide after today’s victory at the Red Bull Ring. red that will finally return to invade the Monza circuit. (fm)