Winward Mercedes-AMG Victorious in 3H Monza

Maro Engel, Matteo Cairoli and Lucas Auer took advantage of a well-timed pitstop under yellow to come out victorious in the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup round at Monza.

The No. 48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo took victory by a margin of 16.417 seconds over the No. 59 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Benjamin Goethe, Marvin Kirchhoefer and Joseph Loake.

Comtoyou Racing completed the overall podium with its No. 007 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo piloted by Nicki Thiim, Marco Sorensen and Mattia Drudi.

Much of the early running of the three-hour contest was dominated by the No. 17 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed entry, which started from pole position.

However, GetSpeed’s fortunes turned when a scheduled round of pitstops approaching the midway point of the race coincided with a Full Course Yellow period.

The No. 17 Mercedes-AMG pitted from the lead of the contest prior to the neutralization, while crucially, both the No. 48 Mercedes-AMG and No. 007 Aston Martin came in under caution.

That allowed both cars to leapfrog GetSpeed and move into first and second respectively, although the newly installed Fabian Schiller rapidly fought his way past a struggling Sorensen and into second place.

The Mercedes-AMG factory driver subsequently set the fastest lap of the race as he chipped away at Winward’s lead.

Not much later, however, GetSpeed’s hopes of a result were dashed when the left front wheel was not attached properly after Luca Stolz had taken over from Schiller, leading to retirement.

This promoted the No. 59 McLaren to second place after Kirchhoefer had also fought his way past the Comtoyou Aston Martin.

Out front, Winward picked up its first Endurance Cup victory of the season, having finished fourth from pole position at Paul Ricard.

The team’s last victory in the series dates back to last year’s six-hour season finale in Jeddah, when Engel and Auer drove alongside Daniel Morad.

Notably, the No. 48 Mercedes-AMG appeared to take the checkered flag a fraction of a second too early, completing two hours and 59.59.6 seconds en route to victory.

The win also provides Mercedes-AMG with a unique stat, as Monza was the only circuit on the current Endurance Cup calendar on which it had not yet taken an overall win.

Al Manar Racing by WRT captured the Gold Cup victory with its No. 777 BMW M4 GT3 EVO driven by Al Faisal Al Zubair, Ben Tuck and Jens Klingmann, finishing fourth overall.

The white-liveried BMW jumped up the order after also stopping in sync with the mid-race caution, with Tuck subsequently charging up the order and Klingmann briefly pressuring Drudi before coming home in fourth.

The No. 32 sister car, which won Paul Ricard, finished fifth overall in the hands of Charles Weerts, Kelvin van der Linde and Ugo de Wilde after a five-second penalty for speeding in the pit lane.

Schumacher CLRT came out on top in a hard-fought battle for sixth, with Ayhancan Guven passing Walkenhorst Motorsport’s Henrique Chaves at Variante del Rettifilo in the final minutes.

That came after the two drivers fought a contact-heavy battle that also included Pure Rxcing’s Thomas Preining.

Guven’s No. 22 Schumacher CLRT initially attempted to overtake Chaves’ No. 34 Aston Martin at the first chicane several laps earlier, which opened up an opportunity for Preining to attack.

However, as the No. 911 Pure Rxcing Porsche tried passing Chaves at Variante della Roggia, he was pushed into the gravel, allowing both Guven and the No. 42 Century Motorsport BMW of Mex Jansen through.

This had came after an earlier off-track moment for Preining in which he took a trip through the gravel at Lesmo 1 after attempting to overtake Guven.

Guven, sharing the No. 22 car with Morris Schuring and Larry ten Voorde, finished sixth.

At Schumacher CLRT, Schuring and Ten Voorde were notably standing in for Laurin Heinrich and Klaus Bachler due to a clash with the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship round in Detroit.

The No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin, driven by Chaves, Christian Krognes and David Pittard, initially finished seventh but received a ten-second penalty after Chaves was found to have forced the Preining-driven No. 911 Porsche off the track.

As a result, the No. 34 crew was moved to twelfth in the final results, promoting the No. 42 Century Motorsport BMW of Jansen, Will Moore and Jarrod Waberski to seventh instead.

Even with the promotion, Century prevailed over Team WRT in a late-race battle for Silver Cup honors as Jansen beat the No. 30 BMW of Etienne Cheli, Gustav Bergstroem and Gilles Stadsbader to take the victory in class.

Jansen gained the position after Cheli went deep into Variante del Rettifilo in traffic within the final 15 minutes, which allowed the Dutchman to slip by.

The No. 163 Vincenzo Sospiri Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 finished ninth, while Rutronik Racing’s No. 97 Porsche of Antares Au and Loek Hartog took the Bronze Cup win in tenth place.

Au and Hartog were driving as a duo as their regular co-driver Schuring was moved across to the Schumacher CLRT Porsche instead.

RESULTS: 3 Hours of Monza (updated)

This report was updated at 9 p.m. CEST (3 p.m. EST) to include a post-race penalty for Walkenhorst Motorsport