Italian racing team Iron Lynx raced on home soil in Italy, with teams taking on both the Michelin Le Mans Cup and the European Le Mans Series at Monza, plus two Formula 4 cars racing at Zandvoort in the ADAC F4 Championship.
Saturday at Monza saw newcomer Gabriele Lancieri take pole position in the Michelin Le Mans Cup GT3 class, joined at the top of the timesheets by Iron Dame Sarah Bovy, just 0.065 of a second behind to lock out the front row for Iron Lynx.
In the Le Mans Cup race, it was Sarah Bovy who took the initiative and led from Gabriele Lancieri for the first hour, avoiding incidents which compressed the field and put the Iron Lynx Ferraris into second and third overall before the driver changes. Swapping to teammates Paolo Ruberti and Doriane Pin, the chase resumed, in a tight and competitive GT3 battle which went all the way to the flag, with the result that Iron Lynx took a 1-2 in the race, the #8 car leading the Iron Dames #9 home.
On Sunday, for the European Le Mans Series 4 Hours of Monza, it was Rino Mastronardi who started #80 from ninth on the grid, and a determined drive from the Italian saw him in the lead after just 18 minutes. A safety car period curtailed an early advantage, but the car continued to run in the lead for most of the race with both Matteo Cressoni, then Miguel Molina, racing hard to bring the car home in second place by just under three seconds.
The Iron Dames #83 started by Manuela Gostner ran consistently throughout the race and with stints from Michelle Gatting, then Rahel Frey, finished in sixth place. In fifth was Iron Lynx #60, which Claudio Schiavoni ran impressively for a spell in the lead before Giorgio Sernagiotto and Paolo Ruberti combined to take the car to the flag – just a minute off the lead car after a hard four hours.
In ADAC Formula 4, it was an opportunity to test and learn for both Leonardo Fornaroli and Maya Weug at Zandvoort. Leonardo had little running in free practice after a technical issue, but showed good speed across the weekend especially in the final race when he raced from 13th to eighth. Maya showed consistent improvement each time she took to the track and collected two more rookie podium places.
Iron Lynx team principal, Andrea Piccini, commented: “Monza is always very challenging, and the gaps are always close – once again the race has been decided by a very small margin. All three cars were fast, and we had a good strategy, but the timing of the caution periods did not help us. Leading with Claudio was amazing, and he drove so well to keep the gap to the rest. The Iron Dames drove impressively, but later in the race we all suffered a little in traffic – so we did well, but not well enough! We are happy to still be leading the Championships.” Turning to the Michelin Le Mans Cup, he continued, “My old friend Gabriele did a wonderful job for the team and Sarah ran him close in qualifying. We were so happy to see them come through victorious at the end of the day.”
Asked for his thoughts about Formula 4, he replied: “It was more of a testing weekend, but we were happy to see continued improvement from the drivers as they learned another new track – it is all vital experience for them.”
Iron Lynx stays at Monza for next weekend’s FIA World Endurance Championship, where the team will be aiming to continue their momentum from June’s round in Portugal.