Monza BEC: Garage 59 McLaren seals win in Blancpain Endurance opener
The Garage 59 McLaren 650s of Rob Bell, Come Ledogar and Shane van Gisbergen won a hotly-contested first race of the new Blancpain Endurance Cup season at Monza.
Photo by: Vision Sport Agency
The #58 McLaren edged out the HTP Motorsport Mercedes AMG-GT3 of Maximilian Buhk, Dominik Baumann and Jazeman Jaafar to seal victory.
With a huge 57 cars gracing the historic Monza track, the key to the race turned out to be avoiding traffic.
The latter stages saw the Garage 59 McLaren 650s, with van Gisbergen at the wheel, and HTP Motorsport Mercedes, piloted by Buhk, battling for the lead while trying to negotiate backmarkers.
Van Gisbergen managed to hold on despite immense pressure from Buhk, going wide into both the second chicane and the Parabolica on the penultimate lap but winning by a mere 0.341 seconds.
The #84 Mercedes, in the hands of Baumann, started on pole, but failed to retain the lead during the first hour as the impressive PRO-AM Black Pearl Ferrari 458 Italia of Daniel Keilwitz seized the advantage.
But when the amateur drivers took over, the team lost the lead to the Garage 59 McLaren of Bell – coming up from 20th on the grid to be leading just after the first hour and remaining there to the finish.
Bell made a fantastic move on the #8 M-Sport Bentley at the Roggia chicane
Ordonez and teammates Alex Buncombe and Mitsunori Tak
The action relented slightly coming into the third hour, but ex-Formula 1 racer Giancarlo Fisichella
His AF Corse Ferrari 488 finished 2nd in the PRO-AM division, behind the Ferrari 488 of class winners Kessel Racing piloted by Michal Broniszewski, Andrea Rizzoli and Alessandro Bonacini.
Defending champion manufacturer Audi endured a turbulent race. The Misano Sprint Cup winners suffered on the high-speed nature of the Monza circuit, and a mid-race penalty for Dries Vanthoor for
Vanthoor, his brother Laurens and Frederic Vervisch in the #1 Audi finished only ninth, three positions away from the top Audi of Nico Muller, Antonio Garcia and Will Stevens.
Race results (top 10):
Pos. | No. | Team/Car | Drivers |
---|---|---|---|
1 | 58 | Garage 59/McLaren |
Shane van Gisbergen Rob Bell Come Ledogar |
2 | 84 | Team HTP/Mercedes |
Maximilian Buhk Dominik Baumann Jazeman Jaafar |
3 | 8 | M-Sport/Bentley |
Wolfgang Reip Andy Soucek Maxime Soulet |
4 | 23 | Team RJN/Nissan |
Alex Buncombe Lucas Ordonez Mitsunori Takaboshi |
5 | 11 | Kessel Racing/Ferrari |
Andrea Rizzoli Alessandro Bonacini Michal Broniszewski |
6 | 28 | Team WRT/Audi |
Nico Muller Antonio Garcia Will Stevens |
7 | 57 | Black Falcon/Mercedes |
Adam Christodoulou Hubert Haupt Andreas Simonsen |
8 | 16 | Grasser/Lamborghini |
Mirko Bortolotti Jeroen Bleekemolen Rolf Ineichen |
9 | 1 | Team WRT/Audi |
Laurens Vanthoor Frederic Vervisch Dries Vanthoor |
10 | 53 | AF Corse/Ferrari |
Giancarlo Fisichella Lorenzo Bontempelli Motoaki Ishikawa |
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