The 6h of Monza has exceeded half of this fifth event of the FIA World Endurance Championship, which under the torrid sun continues to give a beautiful show for the large audience flocked to Brianza (65,000 attendances recorded over the weekend).
While there are only 120′ left to go, everything still seems wide open and the rankings have changed further as between the second and third hours Bent Viscaal on Prema’s Oreca #9 skidded at ‘Lesmo’ hitting Vector Sport’s #10 sending the ‘guilty Gabriel Aubry on the wall.
The Safety Car then intervened and here too some took the opportunity to stop at the pit stop, then in the following hour a collision between Matteo Cressoni’s Porsche and Simon Mann’s Ferrari sent the 488 into the sand causing a Full Course Yellow of a few minutes.
In the meantime, there was no shortage of overtaking and excitement, but the one dictating the pace was Toyota #7 which ran away among the Hypercars, bringing the margin over Ferrari #50 to half a minute, in turn with a good lead over the excellent Peugeot #93 which is holding up for the moment, unlike its sister car #94 which still stopped in the pits due to gearbox problems and then restarted.
The so-called ‘outsiders’ thus become the protagonists: Glickenhaus has climbed to fourth place, in the Top5 there is also the Porsche #99 of Proton Competition chased by the Ferrari #51, currently delayed by one lap.
The factory Porsches of Team Penske dropped to seventh and eighth place, ahead of the Toyota #8 and the Cadillac, which was punished with 5″ to be served at a stop for an infringement committed in a previous pit stop.
Jota’s #38 Porsche was going well, but accumulated delay dropping out of the Top10 due to a technical problem at the wheel which, among other things, stopped Yifei Ye momentarily on track for a reset, after Antonio Felix Da Costa got angry quite a while during the stop realizing the trouble, but without receiving assistance.
Still last in the category, the ByKolles Racing Vanwall has no way of keeping up with its rivals.
In the LMP2 class everything has to be decided because the #23 Oreca of United Autosports has only a couple of seconds on the #31 of Team WRT, which in turn is being chased by the #28 of Jota.
The #36 Alpine was also very close to the podium, extending its lead over the #34 of Inter Europol Competition, fifth ahead of the #41 of WRT and the #22 United Autosports.
The Alpine #35 is more distant from its rivals in eighth place, the Prema #63 and #9 complete the Top10 now cut out of contention.
Also in the LMGTE AM Class there are those who use different strategies and for the moment the lead has passed into the hands of the #86 Porsche of GR Racing driven by Riccardo Pera with a couple of seconds on the #77 of Dempsey-Proton Racing.
An exciting duel is being given by the Corvette #33 in a very strong comeback and the Porsche #85 of the Iron Dames, who are backed by the #60 of Iron Lynx and the Aston Martin #25 of ORT by TF Sport.
The Project 1-AO Porsche #56 travels in seventh place, the AF Corse Ferrari #83 is eighth and better than the 488, despite having lost time due to a contact with the United #22 that sent Luis Perez Companc into a spin and receiving also a 10″ penalty for an infraction detected during the Safety Car.
The Ferrari #21 of AF Corse occupies ninth position, its sister #54 is also in the Top10, although Thomas Flohr had a small problem during the 3rd hour which stopped him for a few moments after the first chicane.
#WEC #Monza #4th #Hour #Toyota #run #Ferrari #Peugeot #podium