Challenging Monza weekend for Villadsen and Magnussen

The BMW duo faced an uphill battle with both pace and success ballast as round two of the Italian GT3 Championship Endurance season took place at Monza.

Mathias Villadsen and Jan Magnussen had to settle for 15th place in the second round of the Campionato Italiano Gran Turismo Endurance Championship, held at the legendary Monza circuit north of Milan. Following a strong season opener at Misano, where the Danish duo secured a second-place finish in the first Endurance race of the year, Villadsen, Magnussen and the Team Spirit Racing squad knew heading into the weekend that the three-hour contest would be a challenging one.

Monza – also known as the “Temple of Speed” due to its extremely fast yet highly technical layout – often proves a tough test even for experienced GT3 teams. The iconic circuit presented the BMW crew with a number of setup challenges as they searched for the right balance in their BMW M4 GT3. At the same time, Villadsen and Magnussen were carrying a 29-second success penalty during the pit stops as a result of their podium finish at Misano, making an already difficult task even harder.

A total of 39 cars lined up for the race, and during qualifying Jan Magnussen secured the team’s strongest result with 10th place in the quickest of the three sessions, leaving the BMW duo 18th on the combined grid. From there, Mathias Villadsen took the start and delivered two solid stints featuring several strong overtakes before handing the car over to Magnussen, who brought it home in 15th place after a race marked by multiple neutralisations and limited opportunities to move forward through the field.

“I had two good stints with some nice overtakes and a lot of valuable learning in traffic. My final stint was a bit uneventful as most of it took place under yellow flags. We struggled quite a bit with the car in qualifying, which made it difficult to put together a competitive lap and secure a better starting position. Despite the result, we are taking a lot of lessons away from the weekend. A huge thank you to the entire team for another strong effort,” said Mathias Villadsen.

“Obviously, this was not the result we had hoped to bring home from Monza. We knew it would be a tough weekend, but we did not expect to struggle quite so much with finding a good balance in the car. That is definitely something we need to analyse before the next Endurance round so we can come back stronger. Once again, though, Mathias did a great job and delivered two strong stints,” said Jan Magnussen.

Following the Monza round, the BMW duo now sits fifth in the Endurance standings. The fourth round of the Campionato Italiano Gran Turismo season – and the third Sprint event of the year – will take place at Mugello on July 25–26. Jan Magnussen will return to his coaching role, while Mathias Villadsen will once again compete for championship points in the weekend’s two sprint races.