Pole-sitting American Glickenhaus denied the win, as were the Iron Dames in the GTE AM class.
MONZA, Italy—On Sunday, Alpine took advantage of a Toyota mistake to win their second race of the season at the Six Hours of Monza. The company’s world endurance team of Andre Negrao, Nicholas Lapierre, and Mathieu Vaxiviere edged Rio Hirakawa, Sebastian Buemi, and Brendon Hartley by 2.7 seconds, and the sister Toyota team of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi, and Jose Maria Lopez, which finished third. The WEC competition was held at the Autodromo Nationale di Monza, t
The American Glickenhaus entry took the lead early in the race but retired later with turbo failures, giving the Conway entry a battle with Alpine. Both cars traded the lead back and forth for most of the race. But Kobayashi collided on the straight with Vaxiviere, and that incident ripped off the rear left side of his car and punctured his tire. In addition, Kobayashi was given a penalty and dropped down the grid.
But the race was far from over. The Lemans-winning car with Hirakawa at the controls began to catch the Alpine, but time ran out as both cars had to battle lap traffic. That clustering gave the French team just enough space to win their second race of the season after triumphing in the season opener at Sebring.
The rest of the classes were just as exciting. In the LMP2 class, the WRT team of Ferdinand Hapsburg, Rui Andrade, and Norman Nato took the lead with 30 minutes to go by having a quicker pitstop than their JOTA rivals of Antonio De Costa, Antonio Gonzalez, and Will Stevens. The WRT team went on to win. Vector Sport took third for the first time in their history.
The GTE PRO class had the Ferraris lead most of the race. But with just under two minutes to go, the AF Corse entry of Miguel Molina and Antonio Fuoco pitted for a quick fuel stop. The Corvette, which had been upfront for most of the race, suddenly took a risk and conserved fuel. It was a winning strategy for Tommy Milner and Nick Tandy. The second Ferrari of James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi finished second, with Molina’s car coming third.
History was denied in the GTE AM class when the all-female crew of Iron Dames could not parlay Saturday’s pole-winning effort into a race win on Sunday.
A tough racing moment occurred midway through the race as TF Sport’s Enrique Chavez lost his brakes and somersaulted just after Lesmos. Chavez was checked over and thankfully released.
The next race in the WEC series will take place on September 27th in Asia at Fuji Speedway in what will be another six-hour race.
