6 Hours of Monza: Toyota leads at mid-race

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Jul 9

Written By Car Racing Reporter

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. Chaos at Prima Variante.

The « prima variante » remained faithful to the tradition of incident starts with Buemi in the #8 Toyota hitting the #51 Ferrari of Giovinazzi in the rear and causing the Italian car to spin. In front of this "dam", the following Hypercars rushed on the escape route on the right.

A Peugeot leading the race

13’ later Buemi caused a new incident hitting the #777 D'Station Racing which crashed into the barrier. A safety car was then deployed during 20’ enabling the Hypercars to regroup and some to pit for staggered refueling. Mikkel Jensen with the Peugeot 9X8 #93 took the opportunity to pass Mike Conway on the restart, a bit later imitated by Fuoco with the Ferrari #50.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. Peugeot #93 ahead of Toyota GR010 HYBRID #7 before Ferrari #50 took it over also.

The first hour ranking saw the Peugeot 9X8 #83 in P1, 3.657 seconds ahead of Ferrari #50 and 4.738 seconds the Toyota #7.

The #708 Glickenhaus was fourth, 13.163 seconds behind the leading Peugeot.

A Porsche leads the second hour.

As some teams had decided to shift their strategy during the first safety car, the classification at the second hour does not reflect reality.

Kevin Estre with Porsche 969 #6 is on the lead ahead of Ferrari #51 and the two customer Porsche #38 and #99.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. Porsche 969 #6.

Toyota takes the lead back at mid-race

The third hour started badly for Peugeot with the #94 idling and returning slowly to the pits. It’ll start again 8’ later.

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. Toyota GR010 HYBRID #7 leads at mid-race.

A new safety car was deployed early in the third hours which ended under FCY.

At the end of the third hour, José-Maria Lopez's with Toyota #7 was a strong leader 28.9 seconds ahead of Ferrari #50 and 52.3 seconds ahead of the Ferrari 499P #51 . Peugeot was 4th with the 9X8 #93, just ahead of the Porsche 963 #5.

3 teams dominate LMP2

📷 © Luc Warnotte at Monza. JOTA #28 takes the lead at Prima Variante.

United Autosport #23 lead at half way. It was followed by Team WRT's #31 and Jota's #28 who was leading the race at the end of the second hour.

Bovy dominated LMGTE AM class during her stint

Even though the #77 Porsche was on the lead in LMGTE AM at mid-race, 10.3 sec. ahead of the #85 911 RSR of the Iron Dames, the leading Porsche did only pit twice versus 3 times for the Iron Dames. The #33 Corvette C8.R was third.