Next weekend, the Sports Car World Championship (FIA WEC) will be racing on the track in Monza for the first time. The field in Italy consists of a total of 37 vehicles. Here is the preview of the event.
In the FIA WEC, the third of six race weekends is scheduled for the coming weekend (July 16 to 18) – thus the (unofficial) half-time champions will be crowned. After Austin, Bahrain, Fuji, Interlagos, Le Mans, Mexico City, Nürburgring, Portimão, Sebring, Shanghai, Silverstone and Spa-Francorchamps, Monza is the 13th venue of the FIA WEC since it was founded in 2012. In 2017, however, has already taken place there the official WEC pre-season test (called Prologue) takes place.
Basically, Monza is a real classic sports car. The old World Cup (which was crushed after the 1992 season) was regularly on the track in northern Italy. The last win was in 1992 for Geoff Lees and Hitoshi Ogawa in the Toyota TS010. It was also Toyota’s first victory in the World Sports Car Championship at the time. Jaguar XJR-14, Mercedes Benz C11 and Porsche 962 had previously won in Monza.
As is well known, the hypercars are at the top of the WEC this year. Toyota has won the two races of the new hypercar era held so far in Spa-Francorchamps and Portimão. Both GR010 Hybrids (with Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and José María López or Sébastien Buemi, Kazuki Nakajima and Brendon Hartley) are at the start again in Monza.
Competitor Glickenhaus is using two 007 LMHs for the first time in Monza. These are driven by Luis Felipe Derani, Gustavo Menezes and Olivier Pla as well as Romain Dumas, Franck Mailleux and Richard Westbrook. There is also the Alpine A480 with André Negrão, Nicolas Lapierre and Matthieu Vaxivière. This vehicle is an old Oreca-LMP1, which is allowed to ride in the hypercar class with a special permit.
There is not much that is new with regard to the Balance of Performance (BoP) in the hypercar class, because the corresponding parameters have not been changed compared to Portimão. So Toyota continues to drive with 1066 kg and 515 kW, while Glickenhaus will be on the road with 1030 kg and 520 kW. The Alpine has 952 kg and a maximum of 451 kW.
In the LMP2 class, eleven Oreca 07s and one Ligier JS P217 are at the start. The teams Jota, Racing Team Nederland and Realteam Racing already had a guest appearance in Monza last week when the European Le Mans Series (ELMS) started there. The WEC racing teams WRT, DragonSpeed and United Autosport have been in the ELMS for the whole season anyway. In the European Championship, however, the standard aerodynamics are used, while the Le Mans kit has been mandatory in the FIA WEC since 2021.
As usual, the two works Porsches and the two Ferrari 488 GTE Evo from AF Corse drive in the GTE Pro. Only at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in August will the field get bigger again. In the GTE Am there are 16 vehicles at the start. There are also some guest entries that take Monza in preparation for Le Mans – for example Inception Racing or Rinaldi Raicng. Never before have there been more vehicles in the GTE Am (outside of Le Mans). This is the preliminary entrylist for reference.
The action starts on Friday with the first free practice session at 3:30 p.m. CEST. The second training (9:30 a.m.) and the third training (2:00 p.m.) follow on Saturday – as does the qualification (from 6:00 p.m.). The race starts on Sunday at 12:00 p.m. CEST. The WEC race will also be televised again. More on this later in another list.
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