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🏎️ A Thrilling Weekend for DUQUEINE Team at Monza
🌟 Strong Performance in the Temple of Speed
The ELMS championship made its way to Monza, Italy, for an intense weekend of racing. Known as the Temple of Speed, the historic circuit challenged teams with changing weather conditions, from hot and rainy practice sessions to a sunnier race day. Unfortunately, due to COVID-19 restrictions, the passionate Tifosi fans were still absent from the stands.
🔍 Friday Practice – Gaining Confidence
The Friday practice sessions went smoothly, with all three DUQUEINE drivers improving their lap times. The team worked on race simulations, setting a solid foundation for the weekend.
⚠️ Saturday Challenges – A Tough Start
Saturday morning brought mechanical issues, leading to a tough practice session. However, the engineers analyzed the data to refine the car setup for qualifying. The hard work paid off, with René Binder securing P9, just 0.4 seconds off the front row—the team’s best qualification of the season.
🏁 Sunday Race – Fighting for Every Position
With Memo Rojas taking the start, DUQUEINE Team gained three places in the first lap, showing impressive pace. However, a poorly timed safety car hurt their podium chances. Despite this setback, the team’s flawless pit stops and strategic decisions kept them in the fight.
Throughout the race, René Binder and Tristan Gommendy maintained the momentum, pushing the car to its limits. In the end, DUQUEINE Team secured P5 in the highly competitive LMP2 class, an excellent result against WEC teams joining the grid.
💬 Post-Race Reactions – Eyes on Le Mans
Max FAVARD – Team Manager :
Monza was the fourth race of the season. We make a lot of improvement on the car to close the gap with the front team. 3 team from the FIA WEC join the ELMS for the race week. We achieve our best Qualifying of the season with only 0.4 sec to the front row. For the race The three drivers as usual where on the top of their skills and made a very strong performance. The first safety car put us away from the podium battle. We secure a top five. Let’s look forward to le Mans 24h in one month.
René BINDER :
Not everything went well for us in the 4th Round of the European Le Mans Series at Monza’s Temple of Speed, but at the endwe were able to celebrate another top result. We had a few problems with the radio during this race, which annoyed us fromstart to finish because Greg, our race engineer, couldn’t hear us at times and vice versa. However, we still managed to make more vital progress with our car set-up. This fifth place shows that we are on the right track, for sure as we are looking forward to our season’s highlight at Le Mans.
Tristan GOMMENDY :
This week in Monza was intense. We have done a lot of work which has allowed us to considerably reduce the gap with the leaders. The championship has never been so strong with the 18 best lmp2 in the world. We must continue this work and remain calm for the 24 hours of Le Mans because I am sure we will have the level to fight for victory.
Memo ROJAS :
I am happy with the progress we have been making each race, Monza was not the exception and we were able to have our best qualifying of the season and a great race pace. Our race result in P5 is quite solid and puts us in the fight for top 3 in the championship, although I have to say we had the car to finish in the podium, but unfortunately we were very unlucky with the first safety car. Nevertheless I am quite happy with the work we’ve been making as a team that will certainly will be very important for Le Mans 24!
