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The penultimate round of the 2024 European Le Mans Series hosted the 4 Hours of Mugello on its first-ever visit to the circuit.
Four hours encompassed a narrative of close racing, incidents, disruption and excitement right to the chequered flag with the centre of attention undoubtedly at the front of the LMP2 category.
ELMS season debutants Iron Lynx-Proton (shortened in our graphs to IL Proton) earned their first pole position, owing to Lamborghini LMDh driver Matteo Cairoli as the Italian took the #9 Oreca 07 LMP2 to victory during Sunday’s race.
Converting pole into a win required hard work as the #9 was not in a position to simply dominate without challenge from their rivals.
Part of the #9’s success is attributed to their performance after the safety car and red flag disruptions situated around the halfway point, and then their charge to victory in the final stint.
Weather conditions were stable and dry thus minimising the factor of strategy down to pit stop performances and tyre management during the stints, especially presiding over the rate of wear.
The #9 optimised these two ingredients towards their first LMP2 victory in the IL-Proton partnership, which also exists for the pink Iron Dames Porsche LMGT3 class effort.
Initially speaking, the #9 was not in total confidence to win after Jonas Ried was unable to retain the top spot at lights out.
In fact, perhaps the most difficult opponent for the #9 was the #34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca 07 which started in fourth position – with a flying Clement Novolak.
During the opening portion of the race, the 23-year-old Frenchman was undoubtedly the fastest compared to any of his LMP2 rivals.
This pace possibly aided by adequate tyre warm-up before lights out, and this element would prove crucial regularly at post-safety car restarts.
Novolak fought his way past the #65 Panis Racing Oreca of Manuel Maldonado and into the lead in quick fashion before he formed a comfortable three-second gap.
The first safety car period seemingly nullified Novolak’s hard work, but impressively, he resumed his turn of pace as if the race had simply been paused.
Furthermore, Novolak completed a double-stint which meant by turn of the second racing hour, he built a near-10 second lead.
Algarve Pro Racing's #25 held second after their pit stop but Ried quickly took back second in the #9.
Whilst the #34 resided ahead, Ried was tasked with fending off Maldonado's #65 machine – with both fighting wheel-to-wheel at one point.
Ried withstood this turn of pressure nevertheless.
Oliver Gray took over the #34 Inter Europol Competition Oreca with 2-hours and 30-minutes remaining.
He was unable to replicate Novolak's peerless pace on a fresh set of tyres, although the occurrence of a safety car (SC) and a virtual safety car (VSC) period – the latter of which automatically becomes an SC once teams had a reasonable opportunity to pit – hindered his chance in doing so.
Maceo Capietto led a queue of LMP2s in his pole-sitting #9 Oreca.
A major incident involving two LMGT3 cars on the start-finish straight, after the pit exit, caused a red flag with debris scattered across the circuit.
A prolonged stoppage meant that 20-minutes was added to the ongoing race clock.
Once the action resumed, the lead fight was on between Capietto and Gray who went side-by-side into Turn 1.
Capietto not only retained the lead, but set to work on setting the fastest lap times.
Once again, however, a VSC-turned-SC eliminated his lead gap as Lamborghini LMDh driver Matteo Cairoli took over the #9 ahead of the #65, which was now being piloted by Alpine Hypercar driver Charles Milesi.
In fact, all of the top-five cars were being piloted by Hypercar or LMDh drivers therefore setting a high benchmark for no mistakes.
Cairoli set about producing quick lap times to reach a solid lead gap, which was balanced with stretching his pace over the course of his double-stint to the end.
The fight for second was more intense, with Milesi being reeled in by Alex Lynn in the #25 Oreca.
LMGT3 traffic closed the pair as Lynn turned faster pace, before an LMP3 returned their 1-second gap.
Approaching the final pit stop for the top runners, the #9 was in first by over 12 seconds.
Lynn pitted first from P3 followed by Milesi on the next lap.
Fundamentally, the #25 undercut the #65 and so the two swapped places.
Cairoli's pit stop was six seconds longer than Lynn, so his lead gap came down to under five seconds after the pit cycle.
With some clear air ahead, Lynn begun establishing his gap on Milesi at 10 seconds.
The attention was now on the fight for P4, as Lucca Ghiotto's #34 made a move on the outside line at T1 on the championship-leading #14 of Deletraz – replicating the exact move of Novolak's entry into the lead near the race start.
Ghiotto clearly had better performance in his tyres, certainly utilised when he conducted another outside move on Milesi to grasp the coveted final podium place.
(L) Maceo Capietto, Matteo Cairoli, Jonas Ried – Images: FocusPackMedia - Marcel Wulf
After 116 laps at the exciting Mugello circuit, the #9 Oreca crew of Ried, Capietto and Cairoli earned their first ELMS race victory having remained largely on top of their fierce competition.
Speaking on his opening run in the post-race press conference, Ried said: "Luckily we all get our own set of tyres so I just needed to manage it for my stint.
"But definitely the track is so demanding on traffic and also on tyres, so it's quite tough to manage both of it – but I think in the end, we did it perfectly today so that's why we are here and we are the winners."
Capietto echoed these words after he added "the car was mega" and that "it was on rails", in addition to the important "minimal tyre degradation".
At his home circuit, Cairoli admitted the #9 "was quick, but not that quick" after finishing 6.5 seconds ahead of Algarve Pro Racing.
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