WEC season 10: 6 Hours of Monza 2022 LMh race
Alpine second win after Glickenhaus dominated first half.
📷 © Luc Warnotte @ 6 Hours of Monza 2022.
The 6 Hours race at Autodromo Nationale Monza saw strong domination of Glickenhaus 007 LMH for the first half of the race until the American squad had to quit the race for a technical failure.
📷 © Luc Warnotte @ 6 Hours of Monza 2022.
Romain Dumas with #708 Glickenhaus 007 LMH managed to keep the lead at Prima Variante at the cost of late braking.
📷 © Luc Warnotte @ 6 Hours of Monza 2022.
Toyota #8 and Alpine #36 were fighting for P2, sister #7 was following in P4.
📷 © Luc Warnotte @ 6 Hours of Monza 2022.
Toyota #8 was running second until an electrical issue affected the braking of the car forcing the squad to pit for a full power cycle reset.
📷 © Luc Warnotte @ 6 Hours of Monza 2022.
Both Romain Dumas and Pipo Derani increased their advantage during their stint up to 50 seconds.
📷 © Luc Warnotte @ 6 Hours of Monza 2022.
When Olivier Pla took over, a drive-through penalty and a safety car eradicated all the advantage the #708 crew had built until, at 15:11, a plume of smoke came out of the 007 and forced Pla back to the pits in slow motion. A bit later, mass was said, Pla got out of the car giving up on turbo failure.
📷 © Luc Warnotte @ 6 Hours of Monza 2022.
Toyota #7 took over the lead during the fourth hour until the Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez squad fell back in P3.
The Matthieu Vaxiviere, Nicolas Lapierre and Andre Negrao squad took the lead again from lap 117 to 144 ahead of both Toyota with #8 in P2 and #7 in P3.
A sequence of pit stops saw the Toyota #7 emerging to the lead again for 9 laps until Vaxivière, who took over on board of #36 Alpine, passed the #8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Ryo Hirakawa after 7 laps catching back Kamui Kobayashi during the next two laps.
With a little hour to go, both emerged from the parabolic side by side until Kobayashi fell back too quickly on #36 hitting the front left of the Alpine and losing part of the right rear bodywork as well as the tire. Kobayashi returned to the pits where the mechanics replaced the rear parts of the bodywork and the wheels to move back on track in 3rd. A bit later the #7 squad received a penalty of 90 seconds for causing the incident.
Toyota #8 was right behind #36 Alpine when the race resumed after the last Full Course Yellow, but Vaxivière was able to keep the lead ending 2.7 seconds ahead of Harakawa with Toyota #8.
It is Alpine’s second WEC win of the year, following its first victory at Sebring. Matthieu Vaxiviere, Nicolas Lapierre and Andre Negrao are thereby extending their lead in the drivers’ championship.
Ryo Hirakawa, Brendon Hartley and Sebastien Buemi were classified in P2.
Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez ended third, two laps down on the winning Alpine.
The two Peugeot 9X8 were lacking the speed to fight with the 4 other LMH. We saw both cars spending many laps in the pits. The expression on the faces of DI Resta, Vergne and Rossiter says a lot about the setbacks of the French brand.
The #93 9X8 of Jean-Eric Vergne, Paul di Resta and Mikkel Jensen had to get in the garage within less than 30 minutes and continued to experience issues during the whole race.
The sister #94 car was looking at the race between the Alpine, Glickenhaus and Toyota from behind for the first half of the race before being forced to the garage also. In the end, Loic Duval, Gustavo Menezes and James Rossiter finished 25 laps down on the winning Alpine in 33rd overall.
