Alex Toril, his teammate Jean Glorieux and the team DKR Engineering achieved a wonderful second place at Monza.
Last weekend took place the first race of the season of the Michelin Le Mans Cup at the Monza, Italy. After a hard race the young Toril managed to score a second place which tastes like a victory, due to different problems that happened before and during the race.
Following the regulations of the Michelin Le Mans Cup, the bronze driver of each team is the one and only eligible to do the qualifying session. Therefore, Jean Glorieux was the one in charge and did it by showing an amazing performance and scoring the first pole of the season for the Norma LMP3 n°3.
In the afternoon the 2 hours race took place, Jean Glorieux took the responsibility and did the start of the race from the Pole Position. A flawless start and strong pace kept him in the lead of the race during the first half of the race. Was then, after 1 hour race, when he made the mandatory pit stop and handed the car to Alex. Unfortunately for the young Toril, the car did not manage to restart on his own after the stop, forcing the Team to assist the car and losing 43 sec. Finally, Alex managed to to rejoin the race in 3rd place and around 20 seconds behind the leader. After 40 minutes into his stint, Alex was already in second position and just 1 second behind the leader of the race when had to accomplish with a double penalty, one drive through and one Stop&go, due that the car had to be assisted to restart after the driver change. Nevertheless Alex showed again his performance and managed to cross the line in a fantastic second place and scoring also the fastest lap of the race.
Alex Toril: “I’m really happy with the result, beside the technical failures we showed a great rhythm and speed. The Norma M30 is a new car that still needs to have some fine adjustments but we are sure that they will be solved for the next races. DKR Engineering did a great job, we had to change the fuel pumps just 30 minutes before that start of the race and they made it in a record time. We learned a lot during this first weekend and we leave with the homework done for Le Mans.”
The next race for Alex will be the 24H of Nürburgring before the highlight of the season in Le Mans.
