Greystone GT’s Stewart and Lewis Proctor delivered a pair of top-10 finishes in the Pro-Am category on a hard-fought weekend of racing in mixed weather conditions in the International GT Open at Monza.
The Scottish father-and-son duo continued their recent upturn in form seen most potently at the Red Bull Ring earlier this month at Italy’s ‘Cathedral of Speed’, racing hard against high-quality opposition aboard their #66 Prosource McLaren 720S GT3 Evo.
Setting the fourth-fastest time in class in Friday wet practice, the pair went into Saturday, with similar weather in store.
Stewart, driving at Monza for the first time, qualified ninth and recovered from a quick spin early in the 70-minute race at the Roggia chicane; his speed increasing as the rain stopped.
Opting to fit fresh wet tyres at the mid-race pitstop as per the conditions, Lewis was the fastest driver on track initially and matched the pace of the race leaders until the track began to dry out far more quickly than anticipated.
This handed the initiative to cars that had gambled on taking slick tyres with a long game in mindLewis soon losing two or more seconds per lap to those rivals but staying on track as an extra pitstop in the final 15 minutes would have cost even more time.
His charge gained him 11 places overall and brought him to eighth in Pro-Am, #66’s case not helped by the race running ‘green’ from five minutes onwards.
This was not the case on a dry Sunday; Lewis qualifying fifth in class and ninth overall but missing the chance to build a gap on his Pro-Am rivals that had started their Am driver due to two safety-car periods during his stint as he became embedded in a 13-car battle for second spot.
Stewart, who did not therefore have the luxury of a time cushion over said cars, and who was thrust instantly into defence mode, rounded out the race in eighth place.
Just one round of the season remains; the season finale taking place at Barcelona on 20-22 October.
Mark McLoughlin, Team Principal, said: “We come away from our first races at Monza with a couple of top-10 finishes in Pro-Am, though with only one qualifying session and one race held in fully dry weather, it’s hard to know what would ultimately have been possible if we’d had consistent conditions all weekend. Lewis’s speed and racecraft in the damp just after the pitstop in Race One was extremely impressive while Stewart came here with zero experience of the track and did extremely well to adapt to ever-changing weather, only driving the track on slicks for the first time in qualifying. We could have taken slicks at the Race One pitstop, but it would have been a high-risk option and the overall podium finishers were a mix of slick and wet-tyred cars so we’re still happy with our strategy. The timing of some of the safety cars didn’t help us – for a second event in a row – but you can’t predict that unfortunately. We’ll head to Barcelona – where we had a Pro-Am pole last year – aiming to finish the season on a high.”
