FIA WEC Monza race report: Alpine take overall win; Corvette fuel saving takes a last gasp win in GTE Pro

Alpine took the overall win in the FIA World Endurance Championship 6 hours of Monza, winning the Hypercar class ahead of the two Toyotas who were hit by penalties. LMGTE Pro saw Corvette take a dramatic victory on the final lap when a fuel saving stint from Nick Tandy saved the team a final splash and dash.

The Iron Dames Ferrari were unlucky not to turn pole position into victory having led the LMGTE class for the majority of the race but were caught out by a full course yellow. The #41 Realteam by WRT took the win in LMP2 after a strong race from the #38 Jota which had started from the back of the grid and had led for a good portion of the race.

FIA WEC MONZA | QUALIFYING REPORT | RACE REPORT | GALLERY, PT.I | GALLERY, PT.II

At the start the pole sitting #708 Glickenhaus car was away cleanly and went on to build a solid lead over the chasing pack which was initially headed up by the #36 Alpine.

By the end of the first hour the #708 had a 30 second lead over the #36 Alpine. But it wasn’t to be for the American team who despite a stop go penalty for a pit lane infringement were still well on top of the race with a 50 second advantage. Unfortunately a catastrophic turbo failure saw the #708 retire with 2 hours 30 minutes of the race remaining.

The failure gifted the lead to the #7 Toyota which was briefly running with the sister #8 Toyota in second place however Nico Lapierre in the #36 Alpine soon put himself between the two and was working hard to take the lead.

It took a pitstop to do it after the #36 only swapped 2 tyres to leap frog the #7 Toyota. It was now down to the #7 to chase down the Alpine on its fresher tyres. Unfortunately for Alpine they were losing two seconds in their pitstop to the Toyotas which with Vaxiviere in the car left him back in third place chasing both Toyotas.

The Alpine was clearly quicker from Lesmo down to Parabolica whilst the Toyotas would pull away from the start line to Lesmo. Vaxiviere would try on multiple occasions to clear the #8 Toyota but would then be under pressure into Variante della Roggia. Eventually Vaxiviere was able to defend into the second chicane and was able to pull away from the #8 Toyota and chase after Kobayashi in the #7 Toyota.

He caught him within half a lap however the battle between the two would be short lived when the two made contact on the run down to the first chicane. The #8 saw it’s tyre blow out immediately and was fortunate to stay on track. The stewards felt the contact was the fault of the Toyota and gave it a 90 second stop and go penalty. This gave Vaxiviere a clear run to the flag despite a late charge from Ryo Hirakawa in the #8 Toyota.

The much anticipated return of Peugeot was a bitter sweet affair with the #93 driven by Paul di Resta, Mikkel Jensen and Jean Eric Vergne failing to finish after being beset with numerous technical issues which saw it spend much of the race in the pits before finally retiring with 46 laps in the book. The #94 of Loic Duval, Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter fared better and successfully finished the race albeit in 33rd place overall.

LMGTE Pro was a more bruising affair with the enmity developed between the Porsche and Ferrari teams following last year’s 6 hour of Bahrain seemingly making an appearance.

For much of the race it seemed to be a fairly easy run on home turf for the the #51 and #52 AF Corse Ferraris. It started to go wrong when a routine pitstop led to a technical infringement that saw the #51 receive a 5 second stop and go penalty for not transferring data after their pitstop. This dropped the car down to P4 and out of contention for the class win. The #52 of Antonio Fuoco inherited the lead and looked good for the win but Nick Tandy in the #64 Corvette had other ideas and in the final hour of the race started to reel in the Ferrari. It was a short lived charge and believing the Ferrari was better on fuel, Tandy dropped back to consolidate second place.

With 2 minutes remaining and to the surprise of the Corvette team, both Ferraris pitted for fuel handing the lead and inevitable race win to the #64 Corvette of Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner which had saved enough fuel to run to the end without an additional stop.

Behind the leaders Kevin Estre in the #92 Porsche was fighting with the #51 Ferrari for the final podium spot. Alessandro Pier Guidi in the Ferrari took the position not long after his stop go penalty but Estre wasn’t going to give it up easily. Contact in the first chicane between the pair saw them both cut the corner. At Parabolica, Estre instigated more contact and finally on the run down to Variante della Roggia it seemed that the red mist had descended on Estre who drove into the back of the Ferrari several times in the braking zone for the corner forcing both of them to cut the chicane. Estre came off worst being forced to take the long way out of the chicane whilst Pier Guidi was back on track more quickly and away down the road. The moment cost Estre a drive through penalty for multiple contacts and ended his challenge for the podium.

LMGTE Am was a disappointing affair for the pole sitting #85 Iron Dames Ferrari who had made history as the first female team to take an FIA WEC pole. Sarah Bovy started strongly and the team held the lead for much of the race however misjudging a stop under a full course yellow cost them the victory.

In the last 90 minutes Harry Tincknell in the #77 Porsche slowly started to creep up on the leading Ferrari. Unfortunately for the Dames, Tincknell was able to pit under the full course yellow which was called to retrieve the tyre carcass deposited by the #8 Toyota. The stop jumped the Porsche ahead of the Iron Dames Ferrari eventually building a lead of nearly 30 seconds as the clock ticked down into the final hour of the race. The #85 Ferrari was unable to capitalise in the same way, entering the pit lane just 5 seconds before the FCY was lifted.

A late stop from the Porsche team could have brought the Ferrari back into contention but the Dempsey Proton team timed it well to put the car back out ahead of the chasing Ferrari and on to take the win.

Elsewhere there was drama for the #33 TF Sport Aston Martin which caused a lengthy safety car period after driver Henrique Chaves left the pitlane and arrived at Variante della Roggia with no brakes. Entering the chicane sideways he slid into the raised kerb which flipped the Aston Martin on to its roof before sliding down the track to finish with a barrel roll into the barrier. Fortunately Chaves emerged from the wreak unscathed.

LMP2 saw a victory for the #41 Real Team by WRT which saw Ferdinand Habsburg take the win over the #38 Jota which had come from the back of the grid at the start of the race. Having led for a number of laps a late pitstop saw them give up the lead but second place was more than enough in a tightly contested LMP2 field which saw the pole sitting #22 United Autosports car fail to finish.