Toyota gained something approaching revenge on Ferrari for its Le Mans 24 Hours defeat in the Italian manufacturer’s backyard at Monza. Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway and Jose Maria Lopez took what on paper looked like a narrow victory, but in reality they had a clear advantage in last Sunday’s World Endurance Championship round. And that explained its big rival’s disquiet after the race.
Toyota won the Monza 6 Hours not because its GR010 HYBRID Le Mans Hypercar was the fastest car over a single lap of the 3.6-mile Autodromo Nazionale di Monza. There was little to choose between the Japanese machine and Ferrari’s 499P LMH: Kobayashi pipped Antonio Fuoco in the 499P that finished the race in second position to pole position by just 0.017 seconds and in fastest race laps he was just 0.057s ahead of the Italian at the top of the charts.
But when it came to pace over the second half of a double stint on a set of Michelins, on a day when track temperatures topped 50C, Toyota blitzed Ferrari. The victory was much more comfortable than the final 16.5s margin made it look.
Kobayashi and his team-mates would have been much further ahead when the chequered flag fell but for a proliferation of safety cars. The third and final full yellow flag period was the crucial one in explaining how and why Toyota had this one in the bag long before the flag flew.
Just after the race was four hours old, Kobayashi was 46s up the road from Fuoco in the Ferrari he shared with Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina. Virtual safety car conditions were imposed to deal with a car stopped just after the first chicane and then the real thing was surprisingly sent out in a move that cynics would no doubt suggest was motivated by a desire to bring Ferrari back into this one.
Kobayashi’s gap was down to four seconds when the race went green. The Toyota didn’t initially pull away, but when the top two made their next pitstops, the gap grew: the leader didn’t take tyres, his pursuer did. The fresher rubber allowed the Ferrari to close down the post-stop deficit from 18 to 12s, a gap that closed further when they came into the pits for the final time with 45 minutes remaining. Kobayashi was given tyres, while Fuoco got fresh rubber on the hard-used left side of the car. The difference between the two cars came down to as little as 6.5s, but the truth was the leader always had things under control.
Source: Autosport