The Temple of Speed: Reviewing Monza

Round 7 of the Logitech G Pro Invitational Series took place at Monza on Wednesday night. It was a critical night for the championship contenders to consolidate their position in the title fight heading into the upcoming endurance cup.

As predicted, the high-speed layout with a large draft dependency played a pivotal role in qualifying, where drivers had to position themselves with the right gap to the car in front to maximise straight-line speed whilst also not impeding their lap at the final couple of corners. Dylan Rudd stood up at the end of qualifying, showing everyone he will fight for this championship by taking pole position, ahead of his Lobs eSports teammates, Scott and Filsell. 

Ric Kuznetsov put his 9ine 5ive Simsports Commodore on the second row, ahead of Gardiner (Lobs eSports) and Ethan Grigg-Gault of ERT who earned a 10 second in-race penalty for impeding SSR’s Jobe Stewart at the end of qualifying. Dylan O’Shea, Andrew Gilliam, Luke Rosella and the first TTR car of Madison Down rounded out the top 10. Meyers (16th) and Burton (19th) confirmed TTR’s struggles in qualifying, a long way from where we expect to see TTR cars. Another notable qualifying result was P30 for Blake Worboys, the seventh placed man in the championship looked uncomfortable all night. 

As the race kicked off, it was shockingly clean at turn 1, no notable drama as everyone was able to navigate the first lap without major incident. At the front, Rudd took control, followed by teammates, Scott and Filsell who all looked to be ticking off the laps, with no driver at the pointy end in a mood to fight too early. Kuznetsov dropped to 5th, whilst ERT’s Ethan Grigg-Gault was in the mix just ahead. Further back, Meyers was making moves, as was Jobe Stewart, making their way to the back of the top 10. As the race settled into a rhythm, the top 20 cars all ran nose to tail, in a giant train for the entirety of the first stint. 

At around lap 15, Scott and Filsell took the lead in a coordinated change with Rudd to enable all team cars to benefit from a bit of fuel saving prior to the first round of stops. As the first stops played out, it was SSR duo of Wayne Bourke and Jobe Stewart who assumed the race lead from ERT’s Grigg-Gault. The front three drivers electing to short fill and attempt to split off into their own pack ahead of the main group. Filsell, the first of the Lobs cars ran down the front three cars as the front pack began to fight. As the race settled down at lap 30, the order in the front pack was Bourke, Stewart, Filsell,  Grigg-Gault, Scott, Kuznetsov, Ross, Meyers and then a gap back to Gilliam, Rudd, Down, O’Shea and Rosella. 

As the final round of pit stops took place, it was Scott who assumed the lead, ahead of Ethan Grigg-Gault and Filsell who had a small margin to Gardiner, Rudd, Down and Rosella. The action began to kick off with 10 to go, Grigg-Gault signalled his intent to win the race. The ERT driver still had a 10-second in-race penalty hanging over his head, which he did not take in either stop, and it is unclear whether James Scott was aware of this as Scott, who was tight on fuel fought hard to retain the lead. 

Further back in the top 10, Rivera tagged the back of Jobe Stewart at the second chicane, sending Jobe into the wall, whilst Bourke and Gilliam got together on the exit of the first chicane, sending Bourke into the wall, both incidents ruining SSR’s chances of a great result, whilst both Gilliam and Marcello Rivera copping penalties. Rivera now earning enough licence points to be suspended from the first endurance race at Interlagos on August 9th, a huge blow for ERT. 

Meanwhile, at the front the battle for line honours was heating up, Ethan fighting against two Lobs cars, and sometimes three as Gardiner joined the battle briefly. Ethan was able to get up the inside of Scott at Ascari, James had not left the inside open at all until now, but the two made side to side contact in the middle of Ascari, bringing Filsell back into the battle and able to push the #088 of Scott down the next straight back into the lead, Lobs were showing how much of an advantage it is to have two cars in the battle.  

Coming down to the Parabolica on the penultimate lap, Scott would make a small mistake by running slightly wide, enough to let Ethan Grigg-Gault get to the inside for the run down to the first chicane on the final lap. This is where it all went wrong, on the entry to the first chicane, neither driver was willing to give any space which resulted in Scott clipping the ERT car on the switchback in the chicane, spinning Grigg-Gault and taking him out of contention. 

Both Scott and Filsell saved fuel heavily on the last lap to make it to the line for a form finish. However, shortly after the finish, the stewards handed down a penalty to Scott, handing the win to Filsell. After the 10 second penalty was also applied to Grigg-Gault who crossed the line in 4th, it was a Lobs eSports 1 (Filsell), 2 (Gardiner), 3 (Rudd), 4 (Scott) and 5 (Rosella). A huge result for the team and Filsell had taken the championship lead off Rudd, but Dylan continues to collect healthy points and is a favourite alongside Filsell, Scott and Kuznetsov to battle it out for championship glory.  

Was it a race where Scott should have let Ethan Grigg-Gault lead him home, knowing he had a post-race penalty still to be applied, or did James not know? Either way, Scott will be ruing this result as one that got away as he looked to be the strongest on the night. Further back from the top five, Meyers (TTR), O’Shea (9ine 5ive), Anderson (TTR) and Burton (TTR) rounded out the top 10. 
 
Other notable results include a storming drive from Tom Freer, 29th to 13th in the race, Whilst Rattray-White started from the very back after a last round penalty and came home in 18th without incident, a mature drive from the vermillion star. Adam Briggs also did a great job to recover from a late race tangle with Gilliam, spinning the SSR driver and then brining it home in 12th. Madison Down also had a late race tangle and came home in 19th, a night he’d like to forget, whilst Worboys also struggled to make an impact all night, slipping from 7th to 10th in the points. 
 
As we look towards the endurance races now, where another 45 drivers will be introduced into the mix, anything can happen. Some big names such as Joshua Anderson, Luke Rosella and Jobe Stewart all sit on the outside of the top 20 in the championship and will be looking to the double point races to propel themselves back up the table. 
 
Tune in on August 9th for round 8 of the Logitech G Pro Invitational series for the first Endurance race of 2024. It will be action packed.