WEC Monza

Corvette achieved “impossible” fuel mileage to win at Monza

Corvette Racing’s Nick Tandy and Tommy Milner admit they had to hit a “stupid” fuel number at Monza to avoid the late splash-’n’-dash pitstop carried out by their Ferrari rivals and thus score their first WEC win together.

David Malsher-Lopez

Edited: Jul 11, 2022, 11:44 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

#64 Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C8.R of Tommy Milner, Nick Tandy

Tandy’s C8.R was sitting second, just four seconds behind the #52 Ferrari 488 of Antonio Fuoco/Miguel Molina with 40mins to go when he backed off to try and reach the checkered flag. However, with two laps to go, Fuoco pitted from the lead for a splash of fuel, leaving Corvette to come home 19.4sec ahead for its first WEC triumph since conquering the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2015.

Tandy, who qualified the Corvette second at Monza, said: “With two laps to go, I saw a red car coming in and didn't know which one. I asked if it was the #52 and the team said it was. Like Tommy said, we basically gave up with about 30 minutes to go because we had to hit a stupid number to make it. But we did!

“We had no idea really what cars could make it. I think there were four of the five cars that pitted under a safety car with basically three hours left, so it was going to be a stretch for all those cars to make it on two more stops. From then on it became a fuel mileage race.

“We fully expected the Ferrari to be able to go to the end. They had already done a stint under green to start the race and went a lap longer than what we could do, even when we were saving earlier. We knew we had to be super-aggressive with the fuel numbers.

“After the full-course yellow, the guys gave me a fuel number… I did laugh a bit when they said it at the start but I knew that if we stopped then it was going to be game over. So we had to run at that pace. The good thing is that at the end, the track came to us and the tires were definitely working really nicely toward the end of the race. So the car had good pace and we could take a bit of margin down the straight and keep the speed in the corners to put the pressure on the Ferrari. I could see that they picked up the pace and that’s when I guess they said they couldn’t make it…

“We didn’t really drop any pace but they suddenly seemed to start pulling away from us… We just assumed they were safe and they could run the pace they wanted. As it turned out, they couldn’t. Everyone went from, ‘OK, good race and good podium,’ to ‘We’re about to win the Monza Six Hours!’”

“I can't believe it,” said Milner. “The Ferraris seemed to be a lap better than us on fuel. The team gave Nick a fuel number that seemed impossible to me, but he was just barely making it. At some point, I guess they thought they couldn't go and we were sitting here thinking they had it in the bag. Obviously that wasn't the case!

“We could see early on in the race that a podium was possible. But based on the pace of the Ferraris and them going a lap longer than us on at least one occasion while we were trying to save fuel… it looked like during the last run that second place was really going to be it.”

Milner, who had no prior experience of the Autodromo di Monza, said: “It’s a track that I’ve always wished I could race on. To be here for the first time and stand on the top step of that podium… to see the fans and our crew guys just below us there was very cool.”

The #64 Corvette has now scored a first, a second and a fourth across the four WEC rounds of season held so far, its sole DNF being the 24 Hours of Le Mans last month, in which Tandy set pole in the GTE Pro class.

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Monza WEC: Alpine survives Toyota contact to win wild race

Next article Kobayashi: Toyota would've lost to Alpine even without clash

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

2027 Formula E drivers and teams: The line-up so far

Formula E

FE Formula E 1 h

2027 Formula E drivers and teams: The line-up so far

Kimi Antonelli meets Italian president Sergio Mattarella

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1 1 h

Kimi Antonelli meets Italian president Sergio Mattarella

How seizing every chance – and making it happen – keeps Pierre Gasly’s fire burning

Formula 1

How seizing every chance – and making it happen – keeps Pierre Gasly’s fire burning

How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Qatar GP

2 h

How Qatar red flag helped Johann Zarco put Barcelona crash behind him

Feature

Discover prime content

A fond farewell to a few WEC favourites

WEC

Monza

By Gary Watkins

A fond farewell to a few WEC favourites

How Cadillac triumphed in the WEC Monza 6 Hours without the fastest car

WEC

Monza

By Gary Watkins

How Cadillac triumphed in the WEC Monza 6 Hours without the fastest car

Why Toyota’s 2026 WEC triumphs have put it into the all-time greatest endurance racing team debate

WEC

Barcelona

By Gary Watkins

Why Toyota’s 2026 WEC triumphs have put it into the all-time greatest endurance racing team debate

How Toyota destroyed the competition to seal the WEC crowns

WEC

Barcelona

By Gary Watkins

How Toyota destroyed the competition to seal the WEC crowns

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts