Alpine, Corvette sweep to victories in wild Monza WEC 6 Hours

Alpine Elf Team took a superb second victory of the FIA World Endurance Championship season at Monza, ensuring that Andre Negrao, Matthieu Vaxiviere and Nicolas Lapierre maintain their lead in the Hypercar drivers' championship heading into the flyaway races to end the season.

In what was easily the most competitive and entertaining race in the short history of the Le Mans Hypercar category, this became a thrilling duel between Toyota Gazoo Racing and Alpine in the second half of the race. There were multiple lengthy tussles on track between the Alpine and GR010 HYBRIDS, the A480 quicker through the corners but significantly slower down the straights than Japanese-entered machines. This made for some excellent, hard-fought racing, both teams pushing their cars to the limit.

Unfortunately, the battle for the win didn't last until the very end of the race, due to contact between the No. 7 Toyota and the Alpine with Vaxiviere at the wheel.

After Vaxiviere spent multiple laps battling hard with Ryo Hirakawa to take second in the fifth hour of the race off the No. 8, his attention shifted to the No. 7 with Kamui Kobayashi at the wheel. The pair eventually ran side-by-side down the pit straight, and made contact when Kobayashi made a misjudgment, thinking he was ahead on the outside, moving inside gradually to take the defensive line. Vaxiviere's left-front corner made contact with the rear right of the Toyota, causing a blowout that forced Kobayashi in for a rear-end change. Alpine was lucky that its A480 got away unscathed.

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The No. 7 would eventually be penalized for the incident, although TGR vice-chairman Kazuki Nakajima disagreed with the call.

"I think Kamui did nothing wrong. He left enough space," he told WEC TV.

Nevertheless, it was Alpine's day and on ultimate pace in the race, the French team had the upper hand. Vaxiviere brought the car home, 2.7 seconds clear of the chasing No. 8 Toyota, which lost ground in the title race and remains second.

"After a difficult Le Mans, it was great for us to bounce back and good for the championship. Next is Fuji -- we will have to beat Toyota then," said Vaxiviere after the race.

The clash between the Alpine and No. 7 effectively decided the race for the win with an hour to go, but that moment didn't tell the whole story, as Alpine didn't seem like a potential race winner in the first half of the race.

On this occasion it looked like Glickenhaus' race to lose early on, as the pole-sitting American-flagged 007 LMH had the pace to pull away from the field and cruise to the finish. Romain Dumas started the race, held his ground and created a healthy margin. But the team's chances unraveled fast at the halfway mark when the safety car came out for a huge accident for the GTE-Am championship and race-leading TF Sport Aston Martin. (More on this later...)

The caution period ended up costing the Glickenhaus its lead during the flurry of pit stops. The team was then handed a drive-through for speeding during a caution period, which at the time looked like it meant the team would need to stage a fightback in the second half to retake the lead and win its first FIA WEC race. Shortly after serving the penalty though, the race ended abruptly for Glickenhaus with a turbo failure that forced the team to retire the car.

Glickenhaus led strongly at the start, but the team's race soon soured. JEP/Motorsport Images

Will this be the last we see of Glickenhaus in Le Mans Hypercar? It's not yet clear, but after such a promising run at Le Mans yet again in June and a show of pace at Monza, the team would be sorely missed next season by the fans and paddock alike should it walk away. RACER understands that Glickenhaus will miss the races at Fuji and Bahrain this season. Next year there is still a chance we will see the team back, although it's up in the air -- no program is yet confirmed.

"I don't want to be the guy who says, 'Yeah we will be back,' because I don't know," Jim Glickenhaus said. "We spend a disproportionate amount of money on racing. We have shareholders, so we have to raise capital. I am optimistic about raising capital, but we have to be careful with the amount we spend."

What of Peugeot? The French giant, in its debut FIA WEC weekend enjoyed plenty of mileage and flashes of pace in practice, but in the race, it hit home just how much work is left to be done before the team has a chance at strong results. Neither 9X8 showed pace in the race, or stayed reliable.

The No. 93 retired with electrical issues that caused the car to stop out on track multiple times. The No. 94 didn't fare much better, finishing 23 laps down after power steering issues. It did cross the line, however, and that should be considered an achievement while this program is in its embryonic stage.

It is of course a huge boost to the FIA WEC for the team to be active before 2023, and going racing before the end of the season instead of testing behind closed doors looks to be a good move as so much can be learned from putting a car through its paces in a competitive environment.

In LMP2, Realteam by WRT took its first win with the No. 41 ORECA in WEC competition. Ferdinand Habsburg, Rui Andrade (the first Angolian to win an FIA WEC race) and Norman Nato combined to take a shock win late in the race.

"It was strange, this turned into a track position race and on the last safety car they told me to overtake four cars in front over two stints, the mission was simple!" Habsburg said after the race.

The No. 41 didn't take the lead until the very end, when the contenders in LMP2 pitted for late splashes and Habsburg emerged ahead of the Le Mans-winning No. 38 JOTA ORECA of Will Stevens, which looked set to win into the final hour after a remarkable drive from the very back of the grid.

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JOTA will be slightly disappointed it didn't take the win, but should be extremely pleased to have secured a strong finish for the title-leading No. 38 ahead of its title rivals after having to fight through the field.

Third in the class was the Vector Sport ORECA, which had a really encouraging run. This was by far the new-for-2022 FIA WEC team's best performance of the season, finishing ahead of the Inter Europol Competition ORECA which rose up the order and looked set to finish on the podium before the team made a longer fuel stop in the final hour and dropped to fourth.

The No. 23 United Autosports ORECA which sits second in the standings took fourth, ahead of the Prema ORECA which is third in the title race and was delayed after being involved in a collision with the No. 1 Richard Mille ORECA at Turn 1 which damaged the No. 1's gearbox.

Brave tactics paid off with a surprise victory for Corvette Racing's C8.R  JEP/Motorsport Images

In the GTE Pro ranks, it was Corvette Racing that stole the show, with an astonishing performance to snatch the win on a bold strategy call at the end. The American team came out of nowhere after the two AF Corse Ferraris spent much of the race sitting 1-2 at the head of the field and looked to have the pace to take a comfortable win.

With 90 minutes to go, though, things began to fall apart when the class-leading No. 51 of Alessandro Pier Guidi and James Calado was handed a drive-through for a technical infringement at a stop, the team forgetting to hand over the data card to the organizers. This elementary error dropped the No. 51 to fourth and forced Pier Guidi to push hard to climb back into the top three.

Meanwhile, the No. 52 led until the final minutes but after holding a comfortable gap of around 10 seconds to Nick Tandy in the No. 64 Corvette, Antonio Fuoco was forced to pit for a splash. Tandy on the other hand, didn't, somehow saving enough fuel to make it to the end and take the lead with just two laps remaining.

It was a mighty performance and a memorable result in Corvette's first race in Italy, following a heartbreaking Le Mans 24 Hours.

"With two laps to go, I saw a red car coming in and didn't know which one," Tandy said after the race. "I asked if it was the 52 and the team said it was. Like Tommy said, we basically gave up with about 30 minutes to go because we had to hit a stupid fuel number to make it. But we did!"

"This was a long time coming, but this team performed and executed so well today," added Laura Klauser, GM's sports car racing manager. "Tommy and Nick drove their hearts out in this Corvette. Even if we had a couple of setbacks, we found our way around them. We did what Corvette Racing always does: we never gave up!"

Behind the No. 64 and No. 52, the battle for third must also receive a mention, as it got extremely heated and featured multiple controversial incidents. The rivalry between AF Corse and Porsche, following on the messy end to last season at Bahrain, was very much on display here.

Kevin Estre in the No. 92 Porsche gave it absolutely everything, and a bit more to hold onto third, but would end up penalized after contact multiple times with the No. 51 (and No. 28 JOTA ORECA).

Estre ran door-to-door with Pier Guidi into Turn 1 when the Italian was trying to force his way past, before having another touch with the Ferrari at Parabolica when Pier Guidi came back at him. The pair were both sent wide in what was a brave move from the Italian after having the place handed back due to the Ferrari taking the escape road at the first chicane.

It didn't end there either, as the pair came together yet again at Curva Grande when Pier Guidi mounted his next attack, before Estre hit the Ferrari from behind into the Variante della Roggia chicane moments later in retaliation, sending both down the escape road. They were both lucky that this spat didn't end with a sizeable incident...

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In the end, Estre was penalized and came home fourth, meaning the No. 51 salvaged a double podium for Ferrari on home turf after the disappointment for the No. 52.

GTE Am ended up going the way of Dempsey Proton Racing, its No. 77 Porsche running a near-perfect race to climb the order and take a convincing win over the No. 85 Iron Dames Ferrari.

"No mistakes, no penalties, I got the car in second place and it was fantastic to bring it home." No. 77 driver Harry Tincknell said.

Like Hypercar, this was a race of two halves. TF Sport with Ben Keating at the wheel looked most likely to win, before a huge incident blew the race wide open.

Henrique Chaves was lucky to walk away unhurt after flying off the circuit sideways at Variante della Roggia, clipping the left-side entry curb, then clouting a sausage curb in the runoff. The side-on impact with the curb blew the car's door off and sent the Vantage flying into the air and onto its roof, where it slid back across the circuit and rolling into the guardrail on driver's left.

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The incident. which was believed to have been caused by a failure rather than driver error, involved no other cars but left many in the paddock visibly shaken.

"It was frightening," class winner Harry Tincknell said. "Those curbs are there for sporting reasons, but maybe we have to think again about the safety aspect."

Dempsey-Proton Racing also surged late with its Porsche 911 RSR to take the GTE Am win. JEP/Motorsport Images

The safety car period then bunched up the field, with the all-female Iron Dames Ferrari inheriting the lead. But that team would suffer from an ill-timed full-course yellow period later on, forcing them to pit under green when the other teams around it saved time by pitting during a caution period. This dropped Michelle Gatting, Rahel Frey and Sarah Bovy to second, 26 seconds behind Tincknell, who then pulled away.

Team Project 1's No. 46 Porsche took third, Matteo Cairoli pushing hard at the end to catch and pass Gatting, but ran out of time and crossed the line 10 seconds back.

Next up for the teams, after what was one of the best FIA WEC races in years, is Fuji on September 10-11.

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