Blancpain GT: Monza Debrief

[Jack Hunsley]

The Garage 59 #59 McLaren took victory in a nail baiting Blancpain Endurance Series opener at Monza on Sunday afternoon.

After 3 hours of intense racing action, the #58 McLaren was able to just hold onto the race lead, securing victory over the #84 HTP Motorsport Mercedes by 3 tenths of a second. Meanwhile the #8 Bentley Team M-Sport entry rounded off the podium.

The day kicked off with an incredibly close qualifying session with the #84 HTP Mercedes taking pole position. But with the top four cars separated by less than a tenth of a second and another 31 cars qualifying within the same second, all was set for a thrilling race.

Whilst the final half an hour of the race witnessed an epic battle for the lead, the initial start was dubious to say the least, with numerous cars falling victim to the traditional hectic Monza start. But the drivers soon settled into their own rhythms, with the #84 leading the race from pole before the #66 Pro Am Ferrari snatched the lead just before the first round of pit stops.

It was here that the #58 McLaren was able to take advantage as after #84 Mercedes, with Jazeman Jaafar at the wheel, had an issue turning off its pit lane limiter, the McLaren was able to sweep into the lead of the race which it would inevitably not relinquish.

However that was not for the sake of effort. The gap between the two cars remained at a steady 10 seconds throughout the second stint, before problems lapping back markers in the final stint allowed Maxi Buhk to catch the leading McLaren. From there on both Buhk and Van Gisbergen fought tooth and nail in a mesmerizing of race craft and driver ability. Ultimately however, Van Gisbergen was able to keep his cool and bring home the victory.

In the Pro-Am cup it was Ferrari who dominated on their home turf. Whilst Motoaki was unable to hold onto his pole position off two great drives from Bonacini and Rizzoli in the #11 Kessel Racing Ferrari was enough to give the prancing horse the victory. Meanwhile, Fisichella pulled out a superb recovery drive in his final stint, hauling the pole sitting Ferrari from 4th to 2nd, with the #66 Black Pearl Ferrari in third.

Finally, in the Am Cup it was the #87 AKKA Mercedes-AMG entry who took the honours. The #488 Rinaldi Racing Ferrari took second place ahead of ARC Bratislava's Lamborghini in third.


Blancpain GT Endurance Series - Monza - Race Results

1. PRO - #58 Garage 59 - McLaren 650 S GT3 (Gisbergen, Ledogar, Bell) - 96 Laps
2. PRO - #84 HTP Motorsport - Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Baumann, Jaafar, Buhk) - +0.341
3. PRO - #8 Bentley Team M-Sport- Bentley Continental GT3 (Soucek, Reip, Soulet) - +29.623
4. PRO - #23 Team RJN - Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 (Ordonez, Takaboshi, Buncombe) - +47.670
5. PRO-Am - #11 Kessel Racing - Ferrari 488 GT3 (Broniszewski, Bonacini, Rizzoli) - +58.047
6. PRO - #28 Team WRT - Audi R8 LMS (Stevens, Garcia, Müller) - +1:17.774
7. PRO - #57 AMG Team Black Falcon - Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Haupt, Simonsen, Christodoulou) - +1:21.561
8. PRO - #16 GRT - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Ineichen, Bleekemolen, Bortolotti) - +1:38.719
9. PRO - #1 Team WRT - Audi R8 LMS (D.Vanthoor, Vervisch, L. Vanthoor) - +1:40.618
10. PRO-Am - #53 AF Corse - Ferrari 488 GT3 (Motoaki, Bontempelli, Fisichella) - +1:48.412
11. PRO-Am - #66 Black Pearl Racing - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Parrow, Mattschull, Keilwitz)- +1 Lap
12. PRO - #26 Sainteloc Racing - Audi R8 LMS (Guilvert, Parisy, Haase) - +1 Lap
13. PRO-Am - #44 Oman Racing Team - Aston Martin Vantage GT3 (Al Harthy, Modell, Adam) - +1 Lap
14. PRO - #7 Bentley Team M-Sport - Bentley Continental GT3 (Smith, Abril, Kane) - +1 Lap
15. PRO-Am - #74 ISR - Audi R8 LMS (Giauque, Hassid, Perera) - +1 Lap
16. PRO - #3 Team WRT- Audi R8 LMS (Baptista, Jimenez, Albuquerque) - +1 Lap
17. PRO - #333 Rinaldi Racing - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Salikhov, Seefried, Siedler) - +1 Lap
18. PRO-Am - #56 Black Falcon - Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Toril, Morley, Engel) - +1 Lap
19. PRO - #101 Attempto Racing - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Babini, Niederhauser, Zampieri) - +1 Lap
20. PRO - #14 Emil Frey Racing - Emil Frey Jaguar G3 (Frey, Ortelli, Balboa) - +2 Laps
21. PRO - #85 HTP Motorsport - Mercedes AMG GT3 (Bacheta, Dontje, Schmid) - +2 Laps
22. PRO-Am - #10 Ombra Racing - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Costantini, Berton, Beretta) - +2 Laps
23. PRO-Am - #100 Attempto Racing - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Van Splunteren, Machiels, Mul) - +2 Laps
24. PRO-Am - #666 Barwell Motorsport - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Abra, Poole, Osborne) - +2 Laps
25. PRO-Am - #76 IMSA Performance - Porsche 911 GT3 (Jousse, Cornac, Narac) - +2 Laps
26. PRO - #4 Team WRT- Audi R8 LMS (de Leener, Kox, Kaffer) - +2 Laps
27. Am - #87 AKKA ASP - Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Ricci, Beaubelique, Vannelet) - +2 Laps
28. Am - #488 Rinaldi Racing - Ferrari 488 GT3 (Ehret, Vancampenhoudt) - +3 Laps
29. PRO-Am - #77 Attempto Racing - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Mateu, Häring, Armindo) - +3 Laps
30. PRO-Am - #22 Team RJN - Nissan GT-R Nismo GT3 (Simmons, Sarazin, Walkinshaw) - +3 Laps
31. PRO - #75 ISR - Audi R8 LMS (Stockinger, Salaquarda, Stippler) - +4 Laps
32. PRO-Am - #38 Antonelli Motorsport - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Case, Magli, Passuti) - +4 Laps
33. PRO - #2 Team WRT- Audi R8 LMS (Leonard, Meadows, Frijns) - +4 Laps
34. Am - #69 ARC Bratislava - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Konopka, Lewandowski, Myszkowski) - +5 Laps
35. PRO-Am - #24 Team Parker Racing - Bentley Continental GT3 (Onslow-Cole, Loggie, Macleod) - +6 Laps
36. PRO - #59 Garage 59 - McLaren 650 S GT3 (Moore, Fontana, Watson) - +7 Laps
37. Am - #49 AF Corse - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Kondakov, Moiseev, Ragazzi) - +7 Laps
38. Am - #42 CMR - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Stievenart, Viebahn, Nicolle) - +12 Laps
39. PRO-Am - #12 Bousten Ginion Racing - BMW F13 M6 GT3 (Ojjeh, Darras, Grotz) - +13 Laps
40. PRO - #19 GRT - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Beretta, Piccini, Stolz) - +15 Laps
41. PRO-Am - #89 AKKA ASP - Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Perfetti, Cazenave, Lyons) - +15 Laps
42. PRO-Am - #78 Barwell Motorsport - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Machitski, Attard, Mapelli) - +16 Laps
43. PRO-Am - #41 CMR - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Lariche, Filler, Lunardi) - DNF
44. PRO - #50 AF Corse - Ferrari 488 GT3 (Lathouras, Rugolo, Guidi) - DNF
45. PRO - #99 Rowe Racing - BMW F13 M6 GT3 (Eng, Sims, Werner) - DNF
46. PRO - #98 Rowe Racing - BMW F13 M6 GT3 (Dusseldorp, Graf, Luhr) - DNF
47. PRO - #29 Konrad Motorsport - Lamborghini Huracan GT3 (Zöchling, Gounon, Brück) - DNF
48. Am - #888 Kessel Racing - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Zanuttini, Glitin, Talbot) - DNF
49. Am - #111 Kessel Racing - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Earle, Delhez, Perel) - DNF
50. PRO - #90 AF Corse - Ferrari 458 Italia GT3 (Companc, Gianmaria, Balzan) - DNF
51. PRO-Am - #52 AF Corse - Ferrari 488 GT3 (Cameron, Griffen) - DNF
52. PRO - #91 Zakspeed - Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Laberge, O'Young, Tagliani) - DNF
53. Am - #30 Team Parker Racing - Bentley Continental GT3 (Cooper, Harris, Pierce) - DNF
54. PRO-Am - #25 Sainteloc Racing - Audi R8 LMS (Kelders, Rostan, Bonanomi) - DNF
55. Am - #51 AF Corse - Ferrari 488 GT3 (Mann, Guedes, Mastronardi) - DNF
56. PRO-Am - #15 BMW Team Italia - BMW F13 M6 GT3 (Koebolt, Roda, Colombo) - DNF
57. PRO-Am - #34 Scuderia Praha - Ferrari 488 GT3 (Pisarik, Malucelli) - DNF​

 

[RustyDriver00]

thank you for the title Jack! Appreciate you doing it for us, this time I'd actually managed to get through it (public holiday yesterday) and wow what a race, so torn, huge Maxi Buhk fan, the kid can drive that's for sure. But then you've got SVG the Aussie v8 supercars legend (who I've got money on to win the v8 championship this year). So against any other driver Id be pulling for SVG, but must admit I wanted Maxi to win it

Can't wait for the next race, Sprint series again next I'm guessing.

 

[Bert Austen]

What a great epic race!! Looking forward to july......then whe go to the 24 hours race in Spa - Francorchamps

 

[Terra21]

Great race! Van Gisbergen is a busy boy and having a excellent year!

 

[fortyfivekev]

Good report Jack. SVG is certainly racking up the air miles and trophies this season.

 

[Andrew Harper]

Great write up Jack, not the easiest thing to do as it was a pretty busy race.

I enjoyed watching it, great battles all the way through the field.

I had to laugh when Giancarlo drove though, he was driving the wheels off that Ferrari.

It was good fun to see such an intense battle for the lead. Top marks to both of them for racing so cleanly.

Looking forward to Silverstone. The sprint race at Brands should be good too as the field for those races is much larger now. Did look at going last year but I think there was only about a dozen cars that entered. Paying for the flights, hotel, hire car, etc made it a non-starter.

Being a bit of a Jaguar fan I was really upset for them when that crazy marshal directed the car into Parc Ferme instead of letting it cross the line. All that effort for nothing. For a small team they drove a great race and they deserved a good finish.

 

[Keith Joyce]

Puts things in perspective when you see drivers lapped 15 - 16 times...

 

[Andrew Harper]

Puts things in perspective when you see drivers lapped 15 - 16 times...

A lot of those cars simply had problems during the race and were sitting in the pits having repairs, rather than declaring themselves as retirements they spent 30 minutes repairing the cars and got going again. I suppose if you've made the long journey getting there you may as well score a finish

I think a few of them were also gravel trap bound and lost time that way....

 

[Blimey]

What an absolute disaster race for the BMW's...Atleast the McLaren won.

 

[Eugene Abramoff]

Was hoping for Ferrari to pull what Lamborghini did last year with new cars, and Take overall win and a Pro class victory, but at least they smashed the Pro-Am category with Ferraris 1-2-3.

Unfortunately GRT could not repeat last year's amazing success, but they have still got decent position.

Nice to see McLaren win once again at Monza, last time it was in 2013 or 14 I believe, when ART claimed victory with 12C GT3.
Seems like McLaren's direct involvement in their GT3 program is really paying off. A victory at Bathurst 12 hour race earlier this year, and now win in Blancpain, meanwhile claiming first place in international GT Open opening round in Portugal, could have won both sprints there, but unfortunately were penalized in the first race which costed them a first position.

 

[Alex72]

Cheers for the debrief. Race was great! So much action.