Monza Saturday Notebook

***Iron Lynx, Winward Racing and Madpanda Motorsport took early leads in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS teams’ standings for the Pro, Gold Cup and Silver Cup classes respectively after the opening round of the Fanatec Esports GT Pro Series was held in the paddock on Saturday evening.

***Madpanda driver Alexey Nesov won the 60-minute sim race after Winward Racing’s Marius Zug was given a 15-second post-race penalty for not taking enough fuel during his pit stop. Zug settled for second, while Jordan Pepper finished third for Lamborghini team Iron Lynx.

***Pepper, Zug and Nesov earned the maximum of five points for their teams in the real-world GTWC Europe standings. Click here for the race results and here for the Esports GT Pro Series points tables.

***The Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo and Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II were given weight increases in a Balance of Performance change after Pre-Qualifying. The Mercedes-AMGs are now 15 kg heavier for qualifying, while the Audis have an additional 10 kg. The other cars received weight reductions, with the Ferrari 296 GT3 getting the most significant break of 20 kg.

***Valentino Rossi acknowledged that his spin into the gravel during Pre-Qualifying was an error on his part. “Unfortunately, I did a mistake and braked a bit too much a little bit too much on the left into Parabolica and lost the car… until that point, the performance was not so bad.”

***Rossi said that he’s currently unsure about whether he will move to the FIA World Endurance Championship in the future. “It will depend a lot on my performance,” he suggested. “Definitely the goal is to race in Le Mans, which is part of the WEC. But I really like GT World Challenge because the level is very high and you are on the track with cars in the same category.” Rossi added: “It may be that in the future we think about something mixed, WEC races and GTWC races, but we will see because now I don’t know.”

***Rutronik Racing must “be realistic” ahead of its first full season in GTWC Europe despite a history of success in ADAC GT Masters, according to team principal Fabian Plentz. The Porsche squad made a cameo at the CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa in 2021 but was eliminated in a multi-car accident at Eau Rouge in the first hour.

***Plentz told Sportscar365: “Our expectations are to be competitive, but also I’m realistic enough to know that the competition level is very high here. For Porsche and us, it’s a brand-new car, so there are a lot of things that are new to us. We feel prepared.”

***Ferrari Formula 1 test driver Robert Shwartzman is looking forward to his first race appearance in 16 months. “I’ve been missing it for quite a while,” he said. “It’s a new challenge: I’ve never raced in endurance racing. There are lot of things to learn straight away. You have to be on it.”

***K-PAX Racing considered fielding its second Europe-based Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 in the 24 Hours of Spa. “We’ve talked about it,” said program manager Darren Law, who indicated that it would have been a customer entry not in Pro. Spa ended up receiving more demand than there were grid places available.

***K-PAX and other Lamborghini teams are continuing their adaption to the latest EVO2 version of the Huracan GT3. “They’ve got a bunch of new components from the throttle bodies to different suspension and aero,” said Law. “There were a lot of changes with the EVO2 spec. For the most part, it’s working well.”

***Barwell Motorsport driver Rob Collard was fined €1450 ($1609 USD) for exceeding the 50 km/h pit lane speed limit by 29 km/h (18 mph) during Free Practice. It is the largest pit speeding fine handed out this weekend, under a system whereby each km/h over the limit incurs €50.

***Walkenhorst Motorsport plans to run two BMW M4 GT3s at the 24 Hours of Spa but is only fielding one for the full season. The German squad had two BMWs on the provisional full-season entry list.

***ST Racing with Rinaldi will enter its Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 into the Paul Ricard 1000km, according to team principal Michele Rinaldi who added that the team could also use it for the 24 Hours of Spa if a new Ferrari 296 GT3 does not arrive. The German team has a pair of active 296s and a third on order.

***Rinaldi told Sportscar365 that the Ferrari which is racing at Monza last competed in 2020. It was previously owned by Pierre Ehret, who drove for Rinaldi for several years and recently sold it to the Tan family that is behind ST Racing.

***Rinaldi is uniquely running four different cars at three different circuits this weekend. In addition to the 488 at Monza, it is operating Frikadelli Racing Team’s Ferrari 296 GT3 at the Nürburgring 24 Qualifiers, a Duqueine D08 Nissan for WTM Racing in the European Le Mans Series at Barcelona and a Ligier JS P320 Nissan in the Michelin Le Mans Cup at Barcelona.

***CLRT team principal Come Ledogar, a two-time GTWC Europe Endurance Cup champion, arrived at Monza on Saturday afternoon after heading straight from Barcelona where his team was racing in Porsche Carrera Cup France. CLRT is making its GTWC Europe debut with the new Porsche 911 GT3 R.

***Although Comtoyou Racing is making its GT3 debut this weekend, the team’s management figures started their affiliation in the category. Team manager Francois Verbist was working for Team WRT when it fielded a car in the 2015 GT Sports Club for Jean-Michel Baert, who is in charge of the Comtoyou squad.

***Pirelli did not apply for the tender to supply tires to the FIA World Endurance Championship LMGT3 class, which ultimately went to Goodyear. Pirelli’s racing technical manager Matteo Braga told Sportscar365 that the Italian manufacturer went through the list of requirements in the tender before deciding not to pursue an application for the exclusive deal.

***It is understood that one of the supplier criteria was a requirement to develop a single slick tire compound that can last multiple stints during races. Pirelli currently caters to single-stinting with its second-generation P Zero DHF and likely would have needed to develop a brand-new product for LMGT3.

***Qualifying for the 3 Hours of Monza starts at 9 a.m. (3 a.m. ET) on Sunday. The race is scheduled for 3 p.m. (9 a.m. ET). Live coverage will be available on the GT World YouTube channel with Jake Sanson and John Watson on the English commentary feed.