Ferrari AF Corse scored its first Hypercar win on home soil Sunday in Imola after a captivating six hours of racing in which the battle for track position and variations in tire strategy created a dramatic multi-brand fight for the win.
The No. 51 499P of James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi claimed a famous victory for the fabled brand, but the polesitters were made to work for their first visit to the top step of the podium since the 2023 Le Mans 24 Hours after controlling the first three hours.
A couple safety car periods for incidents at Rivazza, one in the second hour for a big off for Heart of Racing’s Aston Martin and a second in hour four after an incident involving Valentino Rossi’s WRT BMW M4 and Simon Mann’s AF Corse Ferrari 296, kept the Hypercar runners bunched up.
The resets blunted the pace advantage the 499Ps enjoyed all weekend and handed the other contending brands — Toyota, BMW and Porsche — a chance to seize track position on the narrow, unforgiving circuit, with gambles on tire strategy.
Penske’s No. 6 963 of Kevin Estre took a turn in the lead, as did Toyota’s No. 8 GR010 of Sebastien Buemi and the No. 20 WRT BMW of Sheldon van der Linde in the closing stages. In the end, the No. 51 prevailed.
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Pier Guidi stayed calm and collected at the end, managing a full set of soft Michelin tires for the final two hours, emerging from the pit lane with a 16s lead after the final flurry of short fuel stops, before taking the checkered flag 8.4s clear.
“It was just amazing. It’s been a long time, but the team did a superb job with the strategy and everything went to plan. I am over the moon to win in Italy,” Calado said after he and his teammates took the lead in the drivers’ world championship.
“We’ve been on top since FP1 and we deserved it after a tough start in Qatar,” added Giovinazzi.
Behind, the No. 20 BMW Team WRT M Hybrid V8 of Sheldon van der Linde, Robin Frijns and Rene Rast, nabbed second after a rollercoaster day with a series of clever strategy calls in the final hours.
It capped off a strong weekend for the German brand’s factory team, in which it may have found a way to get both its cars onto the podium had the No.15 not suffered a loss in downforce and pace towards the end.
“If you’d have said to me on Friday or Saturday that we could finish second here,” BMW Motorsport boss Andreas Roos said post-race, “I’d have signed immediately!
“Ferrari still won — congratulations to them — but it was an intense race. At one stage, it was who would make the podium because of the strategies. We kept cool with the No. 20, even after it sustained damage, and maximized the performance of the car.
“We have to analyze the issue for the No. 15. We lost track position, but in general, we are super happy to get on the podium with the No. 20.”
The No. 36 Alpine A424 of Jules Gounon, Mick Schumacher and Frederic Makowiecki also emerged as a contender late on, utilizing the soft Michelin compound and short-fuelling to take third, completing the podium.
Off the rostrum, the No. 83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P, which started alongside the No. 51 factory example on the front row, lost key track position in the fourth hour with a longer stop for a tire change and never fully recovered. Robert Kubica brought the car home fourth, unable to deliver a double podium for the Prancing Horse in front of the Tifosi.
Toyota’s best-placed GR010 HYBRID was the No. 8, which came home fifth following a superb defensive drive from Sebastien Buemi with the end in sight.
Buemi held off the hard-charging No. 50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco in the final hour while the two cars ran off sequence. He also eventually survived contact with the Italian at Tamburello, which sent both cars into the gravel. It caused a puncture that cost the No. 50, which started last, a points finish.
It was a hugely disappointing end to a tough weekend for the Qatar-winning trio after Antonio Fuoco’s error in qualifying forced them to fight their way through the field at the start.
Nicklas Nielsen’s push early in the race to make up ground, in which he climbed from 18th to sixth in the first two hours, was all for nought as the No. 50 dropped to 15th after its unexpected visit to the pit lane.
Porsche’s Penske Motorsport’s 963s also lost ground late in the race. No. 6 drivers Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Matt Campbell will leave Italy particularly frustrated. Their dream run to the lead via clever strategy calls and a sprinkle of luck from the safety cars unravelled in the closing stages. A lack of pace led to an eighth-place finish, ahead of the No. 5 that failed to finish in the top 10.
“The main thing is that we didn’t have any pace,” a deflated Vanthoor said. “By staying out of trouble at the beginning and making good strategy choices, we managed to climb up and be there, but then we messed it all up and dropped back. We’ll have to look at it.”
In LMGT3, the fight for the victory at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari went down to the wire, too, with Richard Lietz holding off a feisty attack from Kelvin van der Linde to deliver Manthey 1st Phorm a fine victory in the No. 92 Porsche.
The No. 92 crew of Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Ryan Hardwick climbed the order seemingly from nowhere late in the race, after key contenders fell foul of a combination of penalties and/or costly incidents.
Manthey’s day wasn’t exactly conventional, but the game of attrition allowed their strategy gamble to pay off. James Moy Photography/Getty Images
“It was definitely too much stress for me!” Lietz said. “To be honest, I heard via the voice from the engineer that it could be difficult in the end, because I had to manage things quite a bit. We took the riskiest attitude to do the double stint at the end of the race.
“From our perspective, we had to be a bit riskier than the others, and therefore it was just enough, which is for sure nice for the spectators and a good show, but for the drivers and the engineers, it was a lot of stress. I want to thank the Italians here because they were not too harsh on us for beating the No. 46, but it was so close.”
Van der Linde’s push for the lead from ninth late on came after the No. 46 WRT BMW crew, who dominated multiple chunks of the race, were handed a stop-go for Rossi’s involvement in the clash with Mann.
A clumsy move up the inside while fighting for the lead with just over two hours left eliminated the podium-hunting No. 21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari when it was sent spinning into the tires at Rivazza 2. The penalty didn’t cost the No. 46 team a top-three finish, but it did ultimately cost Rossi a historic first FIA WEC win from pole in front of his home fans.
The two AKKODIS ASP Lexus RC F LMGT3s ended up third and fourth — the No. 78 ahead of the No. 87 — after a hugely encouraging performance all weekend from Jerome Policand’s team, which looks to have taken major strides forward with its cars since the end of its rough 2024 campaign.
Davide Rigon salvaged a fifth-place finish for Vista AF Corse in the No. 54 296 GT3, crossing the line just ahead of the two TF Sport Corvettes, which did well to claim points on a weekend when raw speed wasn’t there for the Z06 GT3.Rs.
“We haven’t had the pace of the front-runners all week, but it was a super and faultless race. Not one mistake between us,” Charlie Eastwood, who finished sixth in the No. 81, said. “Both Tom (van Rompuy) and Rui (Andrade) – especially Rui’s middle stint, really kept us in it – were strong. There were some tough battles out there, for sure.
“Whenever you’re lacking pace, you obviously feel like you’re on the back foot. But we got the elbows out and pushed as much as we could to the flag.”
Heart of Racing may have earned a strong result with its No. 27 Vantage, which showed pace all weekend, but Ian James ended up in the barriers at Rivazza hard after being nerfed by The Bend WRT’s Yasser Shahin in the second hour of the race while battling for sixth.
The Vantage was an on-the-spot retirement, with James thankfully unhurt, and the BMW continued, eventually receiving a stop-go penalty en route to finishing a disappointing 12th.
The 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps is up next, on May 10.
RESULTS
