The FIA World Endurance Championship heads to the Cathedral of Speed this weekend for the 6 Hours of Monza.
Thirty-six cars in three classes will take to the 5.793km Autodromo Nazionale di Monza, with the Hypercar class featuring a new entrant this weekend. Proton Competition will run a customer Porsche 963, joining the Jota 963 and two Penske entries to increase the total number of Porsches to four.
Harry Tincknell, Neel Jani and Gianmaria Bruni will pilot Proton’s brand-new 963 at Monza, where cars will spend almost 60 percent of their lap time at full throttle, with the Hypercars approaching 320km/h.
Ferrari looks to carry the momentum from its victory at Le Mans to close the 18-point gap between themselves and championship leaders Toyota.
In the driver’s standings, Brendon Hartley, Ryo Hirakawa, and Sebastien Buemi in the #8 Toyota GR010 are 25 points clear of Alessandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi, and James Calado of the Le Mans winning #51 Ferrari 499P in the Hypercar Drivers Championship.
Kiwi Earl Bamber of Porsche sits third in the Drivers’ Championship with co-drivers Alex Lynn and Richard Westbrook.
Team WRT holds a slim four-point lead over Le Mans winner Inter Europol Competition in LMP2.
Corvette Racing sits alone atop the LMGTE Am class with 133 points after its Le Mans victory. With a massive 74-point lead over the ORT by TF Aston Martin, the American team looks to clinch the championship at Monza this weekend.
Earlier in the week, the FIA announced Balance of Performance (BoP) changes ahead of Spa for the remainder of the season.
In the Hypercar class, Ferrari has the most significant changes, with Maranello’s given a 12kW reduction in power, a 5kg weight increase, and an 8MJ reduction in stint energy output.
The Cadillac V-Series.R will see a 14kg drop in weight, a 15kW power decrease, and 15MJ less in stint energy output.
The Toyota GR010 was given a 5kW reduction in power, while the Peugeot 9X8 will see a 4kg weight increase and an additional 4kW.
The Porsche 963 has had 1kg added, with a 10kW decrease in power, while the Vanwall Vandervell 680 has an additional 8kW.
Weight-based BoP changes in the GTE-Am class for the 6 Hours Monza were also announced.
The Corvette C8.R and the Ferraris 488 GTE Evo will see an additional 10kg added to the usual results-based success ballast.
In total, the #63 Corvette will see an increase of 15kg for the Le Mans win, an extra 10kg for their second-place finish at Spa, and a further 15kg increase for being the class leader.
FP1 begins at 19:30 AEST Friday July 7.
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