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.
