Monza Post-Race Notebook

***ROWE Racing claimed its first Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup victory since the 2020 CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa, which it won with Porsche. The German team’s Monza success marked its third Endurance Cup win, and its first outside of Spa.

***Fittingly, Monza winner Philipp Eng was part of the Walkenhorst Motorsport lineup that claimed BMW’s last Endurance Cup win at Spa in 2018. His co-drivers Marco Wittmann and Nick Yelloly both claimed their first victories in the Endurance Cup series.

***ROWE Racing claimed the second one-two in Endurance Cup history after Iron Lynx achieved the feat with Ferrari at last year’s Paul Ricard 1000km.

***WRT “cannot be unhappy” with how it started its GTWC Europe tenure with BMW despite punctures affecting the races of both Pro cars. “For the guys it’s still a learning curve,” said co-sporting director Pierre Dieudonne. “They did quite a lot of testing and the performance showed it. We are there, but we are still not at our targeted level. The only way to get close to perfection is just gaining more experience with the cars.”

***Addressing Valentino Rossi’s incident at Turn 1 that thwarted his chances of a potential podium, Dieudonne explained: “The gearbox went in neutral, probably going from second to third. Because of that, he went onto the sausage curb which is quite aggressive. The car went in neutral and he restarted, but then we got a puncture because there was some damage on the floor underneath. It’s just one of those things.”

***According to Diedonne, WRT was “surprised” at how drastically the BMW pace improved after a BoP weight break heading into qualifying. “There was that change of BoP and then all of a sudden the cars were too good,” he said. “And then it was changed again, and we came back to what the BoP was before. In the race, we had the performance.” He went on to describe the BoP as a “delicate” balance.

***Akkodis ASP team principal Jerome Policand identified the challenges of the BoP change before qualifying, which handed the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos an additional 15 kg that wasn’t touched in the post-qualifying update. “The setups from the previous day were affected by this weight gain and it was necessary to react to stay in the game,” he said in a team statement.

***Mercedes-AMG Team Al Manar Racing was blocked in during its first stop, costing it around nine seconds and five positions. “We had to push back,” GetSpeed team principal Adam Osieka told Sportscar365. “This put us in the middle of fighting cars. Usually we would have come out in P2, in clean air.”

***Osieka said that the No. 777 Mercedes-AMG incurred radiator damage and a water leak after Fabian Schiller hit the back of Dennis Marschall’s Tresor Orange 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, which was checking up behind Timur Boguslavskiy’s Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG through Turn 1.

***Tresor Orange 1 fought back from 21st on the grid to take a top-five finish with its Attempto Racing-prepared Audi. “This morning we struggled and lost pace somehow,” said Mattia Drudi. “We analyzed it was difficult to find out. The BoP for sure did not help us, but if we compare it to other Audis we need to work a lot. Coming from P21 in this championship is never easy to come back to P5 today.”

***AF Corse “missed top speed” on its Ferrari 296 GT3s at Monza, according to Alessio Rovera who finished eighth with Robert Shwartzman and Nicklas Nielsen. “After qualifying, the best result was to go in the top 10 and get some points,” Rovera told Sportscar365. “We have done it, so we are quite happy.”

***Rovera added that AF Corse viewed the new Ferrari as more competitive in the corners. “We missed top speed which is important at Monza,” he said. “When we were behind other cars, it was impossible to overtake, especially compared to the BMW.”

***Iron Lynx team principal Andrea Piccini made a similar assessment of the updated Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2. “As long as we are alone, we manage our pace,” he told Sportscar365. “But as soon as we get in fights, the others are faster. In the fights, we are struggling very much because of the straight-line speed. I think that was the problem for Jordan [Pepper] in the beginning.”

***New track limit rules were in effect at Monza, with tallies for offenses made per car instead of per driver. At Spa, track limits will be reset after six hours. Piccini said of the new approach: “You have to be a lot more careful.”

***Series organizer SRO Motorsports Group changed the minimum pit stop refueling time on race day morning, increasing it from 42 to 47 seconds. Rutronik Racing’s Porsche 911 GT3 R received a 15-second stop/go penalty for a 44-second connection at one of its stops.

***Valentino Rossi set the fastest lap of opening stint, before his time was superseded by Sainteloc Junior Team Audi driver Christopher Mies. The quickest lap of the race eventually went to Thomas Preining, who posted a 1:47.234 in the Rutronik Porsche.

***Gold Cup winner Maxime Soulet stood on the top step of the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup podium for the first time since 2017 when he won the Paul Ricard 1000km overall with Bentley Team M-Sport.

***Henrique Chaves described his closing stint as a “real rollercoaster” after his leading No. 188 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo dropped from first to fifth in Bronze Cup due to delays at its final pit stop. After finishing fourth, the Portuguese driver said: “It’s a shame as everything went so well until that final pit stop and it’s frustrating when you know you have the pace to win but something goes wrong.”

***The problems for Garage 59 swung the Bronze Cup race in favor of Lithuanian team Pure Rxcing, which took victory on its series debut with support from Herberth Motorsport. Klaus Bachler, who was in for the final stint, told Sportscar365: “Before the last stop I was not expecting to win the race because the McLaren had good pace, but it’s not over until it’s over.”

***Monza circuit management issued a statement after Sunday morning’s power cuts that resulted in the cancelation of the third qualifying session. It read: “The Autodromo Nazionale Monza apologizes to the public, SRO staff and organizers for the inconvenience caused by an electrical blackout that slowed down activity at the track.”

***The statement went on to say that “supply problems from the external network” occurred between Thursday night and Friday, before recurring over the race weekend. No power blackouts occurred during the race.

***The next round of the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup season is the Paul Ricard 1000km on June 3. Before that, the Sprint Cup season will kick off at Brands Hatch on the weekend of May 13-14.