Monza plays host to the 6 Hours of Monza this weekend, in the first round of the World Endurance Championship following Ferrari’s win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
In the Drivers Championship table, the #8 Toyota of Brendan Hartley, Sebastian Buemi, and Ryo Hirakawa holds a 25-point lead over the #51 Ferrari of James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and Antonio Giovinazzi after the Italian manufacturers win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Furthermore, it is much closer in the Manufacturer Championship standings with Ferrari now just sitting 18 points behind Toyota heading into the home round of the prancing horse, and with the speed Ferrari showed at Le Mans they are surely the favourite heading into the weekend.
For every round for the rest of the season, each circuit will have a different Balance OF Performance (BOP).
The BOP in Monza first sees changes to certain competitors’ weight with Ferrari gaining five kilograms of weight, Cadillac losing 14 kilograms of weight, Porsche teams gaining one kilogram, and Peugeot gaining four kilograms.
Then in terms of power, Toyota has lost five kilowatts, Ferrari has lost 12 kilowatts, Cadillac has lost 15 kilowatts, Porsche has lost ten, Peugeot has gained four, and Vanwall has gained eight.
Finally, in BOP changes are the Stint Energy with Ferrari losing eight megajoules, Cadillac losing 15, Porsche losing 11, Peugeot gaining six, Glickenhaus gaining three, and Vanwall gaining 12.
Lastly, for Hypercar news heading into the race, the third Porsche customer team car will make its debut in the form of Proton Competition in their 963.
This makes them the third Porsche customer team to make it to the track after Jota debuted in the WEC at Spa and JDC Miller made their debut in IMSA at Laguna Sega.
The drivers of this car will be Harry Tincknell, Neel Jani, and Gianmaria Bruni in a stacked and experienced line-up for the team.
Some of the driver’s past achievements include starting with Jani, a win at the 24 hours of Le Mans, and the WEC LMP1 title with Porsche in 2016.
Harry Tincknell is a nine-time WEC winner and champion in the 2016 Europeans Le Mans series.
Then Bruni is an ex-Formula 1 driver with Minardi, a three-time class winner at the Le Mans 24 Hours, and has two WEC GTE titles to his name.
Furthermore, in a good omen for the team heading into the race both Tincknell and Jani have 100% win rates at Monza.
The LMP2 field is very close with just 4 points separating the #41 team WRT car and the #34 inter Europol Competition car.
Both teams have one win a piece this season with WRT winning in Spa but Europol would win and take double the points in Le Mans.
WRT seem like the stronger team as they head to Monza, as the team won the race last year with the sister car.
Then it should also be mentioned if both teams have a bad day the #22 United Autosport team is only 20 points behind.
Meanwhile in GTE AM, perhaps one of the biggest stories heading into Monza is the fact the #33 Corvette driven by Ben Keating, Niki Catsburg, and Nicolas Varrone can take the GTE AM titles.
They have dominated the season with the team having a lowest finish of second from the four rounds of racing we’ve had this season.
Plus, the car is competitive at the circuit with it winning in the GTE PRO class last year.
There are only 91 obtainable points left this season and Corvette currently holds a 71-point lead in the GTE AM championship over the #25 ORT by TF Aston Martin and a 73-point lead over the #85 Iron Dames Porsche.
For Covette to win the titles they must: take pole and take the win, win the race, Pole and p2 in the race, Finish p2, or Pole and finish p3 in the race.
Then with this being a six-hour race the points work like a Formula 1 race with the winner receiving 25 points, second receiving 18 points, the third receiving 15 points, and then down to the tenth position which receives a single point.
Monza is a 3.6-mile race circuit with 11 turns which was constructed in 1922 and sits in the largest city park in Italy.
The circuit has only been on the WEC calendar since 2021 making this its third time hosting the championship.
The fastest lap around the circuit for a Hypercar is held by the #708 Glickhaus with the car setting a lap time of 1m:35.416s in last year’s qualifying.
In the World of Formula 1 Ferrari is the most successful team with 19 wins at the circuit. Will they be able to replicate these performances with the Hypercar program?
The race winner will be new in the Hypercar class this year, with last year’s winner being the #36 Alpine in the grandfathered LMP1 car. Therefore, this weekend will see only the second winner in the Hypercar class at the circuit.
Then Isotta Fraschini made an appearance at Monza with their Tipo 6 lmh Competizione Hypercar, which will take part in two on-track demos over the race weekend.