One year can change
a lot of things. The Blancpain GT
Endurance Cup season starter at Monza that was a GRT
Lamborghini domination in 2015 had a
fierce battle that ended with a McLaren
win for Garage 59
in 2016.
Once they crossed
the starting line the No. 84 HTP Motorsports Mercedes
AMG GT3 held the top ahead of the No 23 Nissan
Team RJN GT-R, and while there were some Lamborghini Huracáns doing
some off-track excursions, no accidents happened. Even though we had
a well behaved group at the start, the No. 59 Garage 59 650S went to
the garage with only 4 minutes of racing due to problems.
As time passed, in
the first 15 minutes the fight for the lead was down to the No. 84
HTP Mercedes with the No. 66 Black Pearl Ferrari
458 Italia which was leading the Pro-Am class, while the No. 23
Nissan and and the No. 8 M-SPORT Bentley
Continental were a bit behind, without losing that much of contact.
Some minutes after this, one of the ROWE Racing BMW
M6 entered in the garage too, and a three-way contact put the No. 30
Parker Racing Continental and the No. 25 SainteLoc Audi
R8 LMS out of contention, while the No.
29 Konrad Motorsport Huracán kept going without its bonnet.
While there were
some stopped cars and local yellow flags waving, the Black Pearl 458
Italia took the lead, while Bentley and Nissan recovered terrain
after being almost 10 seconds behind the lead, but as the race went
back to a long green flag period, they were losing ground again with
the No. 58 Garage 59 650S approaching to attack, and it took only two
laps to the McLaren to succeed in its move, taking the 4th
position and then the third place from the Nissan.
Eventually after the
pit stops the order was shuffled and the No. 58 McLaren took the lead
with the newcomer factory driver Côme Ledogar while HTP, Bentley and
Nissan helped to relegate the Black Pearl Ferrari to fifth due to the
lack of pace from Steve Parrow in comparison to Daniel Keilwitz.
The difference
between the top four kept spreading more and more to the point it was
practically down to a McLaren vs. Bentley battle, even though the No.
8 Continental GT3 was almost 10 seconds behind near the last hour of
competition. The last pit stop round did nothing to change the order
in front, although all of them brought their best driver to the end
of the race (van Gisbergen, Buhk, Reip and Buncombe).
Funny thing is that
Maximilian Buhk
was living the same “chasing the leader” situation of the Misano
round of the Sprint Cup, although now his No. 84 Mercedes was chasing
the No. 58 McLaren instead of an Audi R8 LMS. The progress of the HTP
Motorsport driver now was a more evident than the Misano pursuit due
to the huge amount of backmarkers holding the leader’s way. The
McLaren was still stuck while the Mercedes was with Buhk being a man
on a mission with less than 30 minutes to go.
It was when they had
the open road ahead the moment when the battle was on, with the HTP
Mercedes all over the back of the Garage 59 McLaren. In the end, Buhk
tried all he can think of and all that his Mercedes AMG GT3 was
capable of, but the lack of straight line speed and the well timed
blocks of Shane van Gisbergen
kept the victory in the McLaren side after the 3 hours of racing.
M-SPORT Bentley finished third with the No. 8 car, completing the
podium. The No. 11 Kessel Racing Ferrari took Pro-Am honors with AF
Corse and Black Pearl completing the Ferrari class podium, while the
No. 87 AKKA-ASP Mercedes took the Am Cup win, with Rinaldi Racing and
ARC Bratislava in the other podium positions.
Curtains now are
down for the Italian show, as the Blancpain GT Series destination is
the United Kingdom, with the Sprint Cup going to Brands
Hatch on May 7th
and 8th
while the Endurance Cup visits Silverstone
a week later on May 15th.
PHOTO: Blancpain GT Series
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