Blancpain Endurance Series: Monza, Free Practice 2 Report
After an overcast morning session, the sunshine returned on Saturday lunchtime for a slightly more eventful second free practice at Monza.
WRT quickly showed the pace promised by the Balance of Performance tweaks to the Audi R8 LMS ultra: 15 minutes into the session, reigning FIA GT Series champion Laurens Vanthoor set down an early benchmark of 1:48.002 that would not be bettered throughout the session.
Second quickest overall was the #333 GT Corse by Rinaldi Ferrari 458, courtesy of the efforts of rapid German pro Marco Seefried. As a Pro-Am Cup entry with two bronze-rated gentlemen drivers aboard, the distinctive bright green Ferrari is unlikely to feature at the sharp end after three hours’ racing on Sunday, but Seefried was enjoying his time at the wheel nonetheless.
“I drove an earlier version of the 458 GT3 in GT Masters a few years ago, but it’s been developed a good bit now,” he told us. “It’s quite a different way of driving compared to my GT Open Porsche – you need to more precise and less aggressive. The Ferrari is more reliant on aero, which I prefer, and it’s more consistent over a stint as you don’t get the heavy rear tyre wear of a Porsche 911.”
GT3 Ferraris always tend to go well at Monza, and Blancpain Series newcomer Villorba Corse bore that out with a third-fastest time for the #90 car of Francesco Castellaci, Stefano Gai and Michael Broniszewski. The #11 Kessel Racing Ferrari – also a Pro-Am Cup entry – slotted into fourth, with a 1:48.461 by Giacomo Petrobelli.
Elsewhere, Oliver Grotz had an off into the gravel in the #15 Boutsen Ginion McLaren, but got going again once he’d been pulled out by a snatch vehicle. The car would wind up fifth-quickest overall at the end of the session, once pro Frederic Vervisch had his turn at the wheel.
TDS Racing’s difficult weekend continued – new signing Nick Catsburg has had almost no track running so far as the French team battles brake problems on the #12 BMW Z4 – but things are going a bit smoother for ART. Their McLaren 12Cs recorded 12th (#98) and 24th (#99) fastest times respectively. McLaren factory driver Alvaro Parente is on loan to the team this season, though he had worked with them before in tests. The hard-working Portuguese already has one race under his belt this year, though, in the somewhat unexpected form of a Brazilian Stock Cars outing. “The cars are a bit old-fashioned compared to a GT3, but they’re not horrible to drive,” he said. “It’s a tubular chassis, so you can’t attack the corners as much and have to do more of your braking in a straight line.” He added that ART was concentrating on fine-tuning setup in both of today’s free practices.
At RJN Nissan, American Nick McMillen was raving about his first laps of Monza. “Super awesome!” he grinned. “I’ve done thousands of laps on the PlayStation and on simulators, but it’s great to be finally racing here. The training process since I won GT Academy has been relatively short, but at the same time feels very long.” McMillen is not a total stranger to real-world motorsport, though: he competed in motorcross extensively when younger, and also did karting and trackdays before his big break. “I can’t say for sure if the motocross has helped me,” he reckons, “but I do think I have a good feel for traction from it. I’m focusing on being smooth and consistent – not provoking the car with any overly aggressive inputs.”
Further down the pitlane, the Team Parker Racing Audi squad were enjoying a hectic start to their debut Blancpain Endurance campaign: with the car refusing to select first gear, the team spent most of the session swapping out the transmission in order to get a few quick shakedown laps towards the end. Driver Ian Loggie was looking forward to a season of racing on big-name European circuits after his Britcar title win last year. A similar problem seemed to affect the Brothers Racing R8, which brought out the red flags in the last 15 minutes or so when driver Sun Zheng spun going into the first chicane, blocking the track. The car was quickly towed away with its rear wheels locked.
The Insight Racing Ferrari caused a longer red flag shortly before that, however. Driver Dennis Andersen got a wheel on the kerb at the exit of second Lesmo, causing the car to spear across the track and impact the Armco head-on. The Dane was unhurt in the smash, but the front end of the team’s 458 Italia did not come off well.
It’s not clear yet whether that car will run in qualifying or the race, but one entry that won’t be seen again this weekend is the Emil Frey Jaguar – repeating a sadly predictable pattern of events from previous appearances by withdrawing with serious engine problems.
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