Andrzej Lewandowski entered the Monza weekend with the pole position already in his pocket, having posted the fastest lap in the qualifying session that set the grid for the two World Finals races. Starting from the front of the AM class grid, he launched his Lamborghini Huracán into the opening chicane and immediately began to stretch the field, regularly lapping in the 1m48s range. The onboard footage captured his grin as he carved through the high-speed corners of the Temple of Speed, while his pace stayed roughly three seconds clear of rival Renaud Kuppens by the end of the first lap.
Pit-stop breach and safety-car shuffling
Mid-race the mandatory pit window forced every driver to stop for a minimum of 93 seconds. Lewandowski’s crew completed the stop a heartbeat too quickly, earning the driver a one-second penalty for falling short of the required duration. The gap he had built meant the loss barely threatened his lead, yet the situation grew tense when a Safety Car was deployed in the closing stages after a stranded car in the Lesmo-1 gravel trap. The safety-car period bunched the pack together, erasing much of the buffer Lewandowski had enjoyed and forcing him to defend his position lap-by-lap.
While the leader wrestled with the compressed field, David Staab of Precision Performance Motorsports surged forward, narrowing the distance to less than a second on the penultimate lap. However, Staab later received a five-second penalty for cutting the opening chicane, which dropped him from a potential podium finish to sixth place. The reshuffle promoted Jakub Knoll, who had taken over from Renaud Kuppens during the pit sequence, into second place, while Holguin inherited the final podium slot.
Final classification and championship impact
The checkered flag confirmed the #16 Huracán as the winner of Race 1, with Lewandowski crossing the line ahead of the newly-promoted Knoll-Kuppens duo. Behind them, Holguin completed the podium, followed by Raffaele Giannone of Automobili Tricolore and Anthony Bullock of XO9 Racing. Dean Neuls (TR3 Racing) rounded out the top six, with the Belgian pair Stephane Lemeret and Rodrigue Gillion (CMR) taking seventh and eighth respectively. Rocky Bolduc of Topp Racing claimed the top spot in the LC class, securing 16 points.
The points tally after the first race reshaped the championship landscape. In the AM standings, Lewandowski leads with 17 points, Knoll-Kuppens sit second on 12, and Holguin holds third with 10. The LC leaderboard shows Bolduc on 16 points, followed by Claude-Yves Gosselin on 12 and the Privitelio brothers sharing third with 11. Race 2 is scheduled to start at 11:05 a.m. CET (6:05 a.m. EST) on Sunday, with Lewandowski again occupying the front of the grid.
Points after Race 1
- AM class: 1 – Lewandowski 17, 2 – Knoll-Kuppens 12, 3 – Holguin 10, 4 – Giannone 8, 5 – Bullock 6, 6 – Staab 5, 7 – Neuls 4, 8 – Gillion/Lemeret 3, 9 – Fitzpatrick/Schwartz 2, 10 – Morillo/Whiting 1.
- LC class: 1 – Bolduc 16, 2 – Gosselin 12, 3 – D. Privitelio/L. Privitelio 11, 4 – Koebbe 8, 5 – Tang 6, 6 – Roberts 5, 7 – Turzo 4, 8 – Ostergaard/Møller 3, 9 – Touchette 2, 10 – Shahi 1.
