The Cadillac piloted by Jack Aitken, Sebastien Bourdais and Earl Bamber clung on to secure the season-opening FIA World Endurance Championship victory at Monza, while Toyota’s trio of Buemi, Hartley and Hirakawa claimed the drivers’ crown despite finishing 11th.
The Toyotas had never been a factor in the race and neither TR010 Hybrid scored points, this lack of performance making it impossible for the No. 7 crew of retiring Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries to overhaul their stablemates.
The No. 8 car ultimately won the intra-team battle as the No. 7 was only 12th with the success marking a fifth crown for Buemi and Hartley and a third for Hirakawa.
Up at the front, the No. 38 Cadillac V-Series.R trio delivered a dominant display to maintain JOTA’s remarkable record of winning a race in every WEC season it has contested.
Although the final winning margin was 5.607 seconds, there was a nervy finish for the squad as intense fuel saving enabled the No. 36 Signatech Alpine A424 of Victor Martins to slash what had been a lead over 10 seconds at one stage.
For the second race in a row, Dani Juncadella aboard the No. 19 Genesis GMR-001 grabbed the lead on the first lap after going side by side with the pole-sitting No. 50 Ferrari 499P of Miguel Molina into the first chicane.
Juncadella cut the corner to pull clear and was later handed a five-second penalty, while Aitken was also able to jump the Ferrari.
Genesis’ lead lasted a little longer than in Barcelona as it was on lap seven that Aitken dived ahead on the run to the Parabolica, the pair making slight contact.
From there the Cadillac maintained the net lead throughout the remainder of the race, but was unable to pull far ahead of Juncadella in the opening couple of hours as a sequence of cautions gave the race a very stop/start nature.
Paul-Loup Chatin had continued to run close to the triple-stinting Aitken when the Genesis suddenly ground to a halt at the start of the third hour with an electrical shutdown.
Bourdais climbed aboard the Cadillac during the resulting VSC and the No. 38 machine faced some of its most intense pressure upon the restart when the No. 36 Signatech Alpine A424 of Victor Martins and the No. 20 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 of Sheldon van der Linde were right on Bourdais’ tail.
But he was able to resist their attacks and van der Linde actually jumped Martins approaching halfway when he capitalized on the end of a Full-Course Yellow period.
The roles were reversed shortly after the fourth VSC of the race, caused by a huge crash for Charles Milesi in the sister Alpine at the Parabolica.
This time Martins dived down the inside of the BMW at the first chicane to guide the Alpine back to second upon the restart and it continued to hold that place to the flag to end the French manufacturer’s WEC involvement with a podium for Martins and Jules Gounon as they could not quite get on terms with the Cadillac in the closing minutes.
In contrast, the BMW plummeted down the order in the final couple of hours as Robin Frijns had a couple of offs at Ascari on some very used tires.
Instead there was a maiden WEC podium for the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Valkyrie after Tom Gamble was on a charge in the No. 007 machine started by Harry Tincknell.
The Aston had twice tried an offset strategy in the opening hours, only to be thwarted by VSCs on each occasion.
But Gamble elevated the car up to fourth with a move on the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 with 25 minutes to go before he darted up to the rear of the No. 51 Ferrari of last year’s champions Antonio Giovinazzi, James Calado and Alessandro Pier Guidi — the only one of the 499Ps to avoid sanction in the opening hours for tire pressures that were too low as teams experienced the Monza track in truly dry conditions for the first time.
Gamble dived ahead in the final 15 minutes and was just about able to hold on to take a landmark result as the Ferrari had to settle for fourth.
Despite losing out to the Aston, Peugeot had enjoyed a strong outing with the No. 94 machine of Loic Duval, Theo Pourchaire and Malthe Jakobsen achieving the best result of the season for the French manufacturer in fifth, despite the crew battling a clutch issue.
Jakobsen and the second Cadillac of Alex Lynn had enjoyed a ferocious scrap in the closing laps but the pair tangled exiting the Roggia chicane with two minutes to go and that sent Lynn heavily into the barriers and meant the No. 15 BMW rounded out the top-six.
Edgar Wins LMGT3 Title as Manthey Porsche Triumphs
The Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo of Yasser Shahin, Riccardo Pera and Richard Lietz took the final LMGT3 win of the season, but it was not enough to deny TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R driver Jonny Edgar the title.
Things were not looking so good for Edgar when Ben Keating was handed a penalty in the second hour for a VSC infringement in the second hour that dropped the No. 33 car outside of the points.
But a host of penalties for rival squads and steady progress when Edgar climbed aboard put him back in a position to claim the spoils.
The early hours of the race were all about the Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 EVO and Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 squads as each of the four cars spent a spell in the lead but they all encountered varying problems.
The No. 77 Mustang of Eric Powell jumped the pole-sitting No. 78 Lexus of Tom Van Rompuy after five laps but both of these cars attracted multiple penalties: Powell two drive-throughs for track limits, Van Rompuy for a pair of VSC infringements.
This meant the No. 87 Lexus had a couple of hours in the lead but was then usurped by a recovering Giammarco Levorato in the No. 88 Ford, which had also attracted a penalty early on for using excessive power, while Clemens Schmid was then instructed to stop the Lexus on track after debris pierced the radiator.
The fourth VSC of the race then changed the complexion of the fight as the two crews in title contention — the No. 92 Manthey Porsche and the No. 33 Corvette — were handed a significant advantage by being the only two yet to stop.
That put them into first and second but Ben Tuck was on a charge in the No. 77 Mustang and dived by the Porsche to reclaim the lead in the fifth hour.
But that crew’s hopes were dashed for good when Seb Priaulx tangled with the No. 7 Toyota, causing significant damage to the Ford and it needed to pit for repairs.
That put the No. 92 Porsche of Lietz — contesting his 100th WEC race — in prime position to triumph and he ultimately crossed the line just seconds ahead of the No. 23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo in which Eduardo Barrichello had starred alongside Gray Newell and Jonny Adam.
Third for Edgar, Keating and Nick Catsburg was more than enough for Edgar to claim the crown, especially as a drive-through penalty for Peter Dempsey in the sister Corvette confined that car to 11th and ended its faint title hopes.
