GTWC Europe, Audi triumphs at the 3h of Monza in a race with spectacular accidents

Victory for the Tresor Attempto Racing team

The 3 Hours of Monza 2026 of the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup delivered one of the most unpredictable shows in recent years. On the Brianza track, traditionally the scene of hard-fought races and borderline strategies, a chaotic race took place, interrupted by numerous neutralizations and marked by incidents from the start.

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The winner was the Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II number 66 of Tresor Attempto Racing, entrusted to Ariel Levi, Sebastian Øgaard and the Italian Rocco Mazzola. A surprising success both for the way it was achieved and because the crew started far from the top positions, but managed to perfectly exploit the circumstances of the race and the various Full Course Yellows that marked the three hours of competition. It is worth noting that the overall victory went to a team of drivers belonging to the Silver category.

Multiple crash at the first braking zone

The incident that shaped the race came already at the first chicane. After the historic pole position won by the Ford Mustang GT3 of HRT, the group arrived compact at the First Chicane and the usual Monza bottleneck generated chaos. Several favored cars, including the Ford Mustangs and Rovera’s Ferrari, were involved in contacts and incidents that immediately reshuffled the cards, confirming once again how the first chicane of the Brianza track is a very severe bottleneck on the first lap of such a crowded category.

During the race, the neutralizations became as much protagonists as the drivers. The Tresor Attempto team perfectly read the evolution of the race, making pit stops at the most favorable moments and progressively gaining ground. The decisive turning point came in the last sequence of stops, when Rocco Mazzola managed to emerge ahead of the Mercedes-AMG Winward Racing of Marvin Dienst.

A second terrible accident a few minutes from the end

The last minutes brought further tension. Marvin Dienst’s hopes of victory were shattered just over half an hour from the end. After climbing back up to the top positions and targeting Mazzola’s Audi, the Mercedes-AMG Winward Racing driver was involved in an accident at the First Chicane. During a heated battle, a Porsche and a BMW came into contact and one of the cars was projected into the trajectory of the Mercedes #87, which could not avoid the impact. An unfortunate episode that forced Dienst to abandon a race in which he had been one of the main contenders for the final victory.

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A finale that rewarded an impeccable performance from a strategic point of view and that brought the Audi R8 LMS back to the top step of the podium in the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.

Beyond the final result, the Monza race confirmed an increasingly evident trend in the championship: pure speed is no longer enough. In a context characterized by increasingly competitive grids and frequent interventions by race control, the ability to interpret neutralizations and adapt strategy in real time can make as much difference as pace on track.

For Tresor Attempto Racing, it is a victory of great prestige, achieved in front of the home crowd of a young Rocco Mazzola who kept his head in the difficult final laps, on one of the most iconic circuits in European motorsport.

Victory for Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO in the Gold and Bronze classes

Among the classes, the Gold Cup smiled on the Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO #71 of Selected Car Racing, brought to victory by Frederik Schandorff, Simon Birch and Malte Ebdrup. The Danish crew managed to avoid the problems that characterized much of the group, building an extremely solid performance and achieving an important result in a very competitive category. In Bronze Cup, instead, the Ferrari 296 GT3 EVO #74 of Kessel Racing with Dustin Blattner, Lorenzo Patrese and Dennis Marschall celebrated, authors of a regular and intelligent race that allowed them to emerge in the chaos of the Brianza race.

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