Mattschull And Dillmann Take The Win At Incident-Scarred Monza

The fifth race of the 2022 Michelin Le Mans Cup saw plenty of drama with two Safety Car and six Full Course Yellow periods during the 110-minute race at the Autodromo Nazionale di Monza.

After starting in sixth place Alexander Mattschull handed the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier to Tom Dillmann, who fought his way up from 4th, overtaking the #29 MV2S Forestier Racing Ligier of Louis Rousset after a great battle to take the lead. This was the Franco-German pairings third win from five starts and extends their lead in the championship standings.

It was a good day for the Racing Spirit of Leman team as Josh Skelton passed Charles Milesi in the no9 AT Racing Ligier in the final minutes to secure the third spot on the podium.

The GT3 battle was eventually won by the #88 GMB Motorsport Honda NSX of Lars Pedersen and Mikkel Pedersen, the Danes starting the race from the back of the grid to eventually make their way to the top step of the podium, finishing nearly a minute ahead of their teammates Kristian Poulsen and Kasper Jensen in the #55 Honda NSX.

The race started with Freddie Hunt in the #76 Reiter Engineering Ligier leading the field into the first chicane ahead of the #29 MV2S Forestier Racing Ligier of Jerome de Sadeleer.

The GT3 field saw the #99 Bullitt Racing Aston Martin also make up ground at the start with Stephen Pattrick up to 2nd in class ahead of the #44 GMB Motorsport Honda of Gustav Birch, as the pole sitter Emanuele Busnelli in the #46 Ebimotors Porsche dropped down to 4th.

The first Safety Car was deployed a lap later after the #3 DKR Engineering Duqueine of Jon Brownson went off into the gravel at Ascari and had to be helped out by the marshals.

At the restart Freddie Hunt was still leading but the British driver had the #29 MV2S Ligier filling his mirrors as they headed into T1. Hunt locked up and went across the corner, emerging still in the lead but the mistake allowed De Sadeleer to take the lead into the chicane.

However, another Safety Car was brought out within one minute of the restart as the #22 United Autosports Ligier of Andres Latorre and the #57 Graff Racing Ligier of Stephan Rupp collided at T1 and were static on the apex of the corner.

After this was cleared the race resumed with the #29 MV2S Ligier ahead of the #76 Reiter Engineering Ligier, just ahead of the #11 WTM Racing Ligier of Torsten Kratz and the #7 Nielsen Racing Ligier of Tony Wells.

The GT3 field was led by the #55 Honda NSX of Kristian Poulsen, who was just ahead of his GMB Motorsport teammate Gustav Birch in the #44 Honda.
It wasn’t long before another car went off in a dangerous position with the #23 United Autosports Ligier in the gravel at Parabolica.

At the restart Hunt was challenging De Sadeleer for the lead but pushed too hard and ran through the gravel at Lesmo 2. Hunt retained his second position but had dropped back as he struggled for grip on his dusty tyres.

Emanuele Busnelli was making up places in the Ebimotors Porsche and was back up to second place as the pitstop window approached.The leading GT3 cars decided to stop as the pit window opened but just as they completed their stops another Full Course Yellow was declared when the #99 Aston Martin went off into the gravel.This allowed the rest of the field to complete their pitstops while the others were limited to 80kph. The Aston would rejoin with Pattrick handling over to Valentin Haase Clot for a sparkling run to the finish, this despite the trip into the gravel having badly damaged the Vatage’s rear diffuser.

After the field had completed their stops the race went green with the #76 Reiter Engineering Ligier back in the lead of the race in the hands of Mads Siljehaug, ahead of the #29 MV2S Ligier of Louis Rousset.However, Reiters joy was short lived when the team were served a drive through penalty for changing the steering wheel on the grid just before the start of the race, the wheel had overheated and failed. Siljehaug served the penalty and rejoined in 8th.

In the GT3 class the order had been shaken up by the FCY, with the #44 Honda of Jen Moller leading, well ahead of the #88 NSX of Mikkel Pedersen and the #55 Honda of Kasper Jensen, who had the #46 Porsche of Fabio Babini closing the gap.

Moller’s race came to an abrupt end when he was hit by the #40 Graff LMP3 car and the Dane ended up in the gravel at T8, bringing out (yet) another FCY and evoking an understandably emotional reaction from the then GT3 Race leader, the incident ruining a potential GMB 1,2,3.

Meanwhile Tome Dillmann had taken over the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier and was on a charge towards the front of the field.

He was soon on the rear wing of the #29 MV2S Forestier Racing Ligier and for several laps the two French drivers battled for the lead and were still battling when the FCY was brought out to recover the #44 GMB Motorsport Honda.

At the restart Dillmann regained the momentum and made his move at Parabolica to take the lead of the race with 25-minutes left on the clock.

The #46 Ebimotors Porsche was given a 2 second stop and go for not respecting the pitstop time but Babini was trying to get ahead of the second placed Honda of Kasper Jensen. The Italian team had actually anticipated the penalty and served the stop before being informed by Race Control, the fact that they did do under an FCY though might well have been viewed as both optimistic, and a challenge to the new Race Director Fayez Ramzy Fayez. It didn’t wash!

The Italian got ahead of the Dane with 10 minutes remaining but the sixth and final FCY was declared a few minutes later when the #53 RLR MSport Ligier of Simon Butler went into the gravel, the Racing Reverend would rejoin but pit into retirement.

The race resumed with two minutes left and a sprint to the line saw the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman Ligier take the chequered flag 5 seconds ahead of the #29 MV2S Forestier Racing Ligier, with Josh Skelton passing Leonard Weiss in the #11 WTM Racing Duquesne for the final podium position, with Charles Milesi in the #9 AT Racing Ligier getting ahead of the German for 4th place before the chequered flag.

The #88 GMB Motorsport Honda took the chequered flag to take Lars Pedersen and Mikkel Pedersen’s first MLMC victory.The #55 GMB Motorsport Honda was classified in second place after the #46 Ebimotors Porsche was given an additional 45 second penalty for not serving the Stop and Go Penalty, dropping the Italian team down to 4th behind the #99 Bullitt Racing Aston Martin Vantage.

In summary – driving standards on Saturday were, in some cases, unacceptably poor, the Series would benefit from an ‘on point’ Drivers Briefing at Spa – There was plenty of video evidence over an hour and 50 minutes to reinforce the instructions and advice from Race Control!

MLMC Monza Result

The next round of the 2022 Michelin Le Mans Cup will be at Spa-Francorchamps on Saturday 24 September.