#7 Toyota’s Kamui Kobayashi, Mike Conway, and Nyck de Vries have won the 6 Hours of Imola, the second round of the 2024 FIA World Endurance Championship, after a hard, race-long battle with both Ferrari and Porsche.
In second was the #6 Porsche of Laurens Vanthoor, Kevin Estre and Andre Lotterer, with Porsche completing a 2-3 as the sister #5 car of Matt Campbell, Fred Makowiecki, and Michael Christensen.
The Ferraris, which finished fourth, seventh and eighth, led away from the line and for much of the first half of the race. Nicklas Nielsen, onboard the pole-sitting #50 Ferrari 499P, retained the lead at the start, with Antonio Giovinazzi in the sister #51 Ferrari taking second off the customer #83 AF Corse Ferrari of Robert Kubica, who slipped down to third.
However, there was an almost immediate safety to clear up a multi-car accident at Tamburello.
Jean-Karl Vernay, in the #11 Isotta Fraschini Tipo 6 MLH Competizione, made contact with Matthieu Vaxiviere in the #36 Alpine A424. This then sent the Frenchman into Marco Wittmann, in the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8, who subsequently hit the #94 Peugeot 9X8 of Paul di Resta.
The Alpine’s nose was been destroyed, requiring Vaxiviere to pit and have it replaced. Upon examination, the car needed further repairs and the team pushed it back into the garage. The same was true of Wittmann’s BMW — which is still in the pits at the time of writing. Di Resta also pitted to have the right left wheel replaced on his Peugeot.
Once the safety car came in, the Ferraris began to stretch their legs, creating a gap to the #6 Porsche 963 of Laurens Vanthoor in fourth. The first and second full course yellows came and went, with the pitstop cycle starting for the Hypercars at the top of the hour.
Ferrari changed Nielsen’s rear left tyre as well as refueling the car, meaning the Dane dropped down to sixth. Now in the lead was Giovinazzi, from Conway in the #7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid and Vanthoor.
Conway and Vanthoor subsequently engaged in a very tight battle, with the battle being interrupted by the hourly pitstop cycle.
Over the next few hours, with Miguel Molina having taken over the #50 Ferrari, the Spaniard was able to climb his way back to second, using strategy to pass the Toyotas and Porsches in front of him. Once in second, he set about catching his teammate James Calado, who’d taken over the #51 Ferrari after Giovinazzi climbed out.
This battle continued through subsequent FCYs for the Isotta Fraschini, with the team’s inexperienced drivers struggling at the tricky Imola.
However, after Callum Ilott went off track at Rivazza, a full coursre yellow then a subsequent virtual safety car — its first use in WEC — closed the pack up, with the safety car being deployed as part of the VSC rules.
When the pitlane opened before the safety car, most of the field pitted. This promoted Kamui Kobayashi, now in the #7 Toyota, to the lead, with Molina second and Kevin Estre, in the #6 Porsche, third.
It wouldn’t stay like that for long though. The threatened rain had arrived, and at the end of the first green flag lap after the safety came came in, Kobayashi pitted from the lead, as did many other cars, including Estre in second.
However, all three Ferraris stayed out, putting them back into the 1-2-3 positions they had started the race in. This turned out to be the wrong strategy, as the track got wetter and wetter. Although Calado told the team he didn’t want to come in, and Ferrari themselves thought it would stop raining soon, with Kobayashi now on wets and catching at a rate of knots, the Italian manufacturer had no choice but to pit all three cars, losing around a minute to Kobayashi, now in the lead with Estre and teammate Brendon Hartley behind him.
Hartley found himself being pursued by Sheldon van der Linde, who was leading the BMW charge in a fine fourth place for the #20 M Hybrid V8 crew. Kobayashi was able to extend his lead over Estre – up to 13 seconds with Hartley 35 seconds off his teammate.
Van der Linde was mere tenths behind the second Toyota, with Campbell nine seconds behind the BMW. Ferrari was left reeling as Calado and Fuoco found themselves over a minute off of the lead. As the end of the fifth hour drew in, Kobayashi’s advantage had grown to over 20 seconds as a number of the top runners made moves into pit-lane for their final stops.
As the track started to dry up it was time for drivers to switch back onto the slick tyres, but for the likes of Hartley, this proceeded a difficult transition to manage, with the #8 Toyota having a couple of off-track excursions. This helped Campbell steal an advantage over the Toyota with a later stop.
Meanwhile, Calado made way for Pier Guidi and Ferrari gambled to keep the #51 car on worn wets. Fucoco in the #50 car was able to extend his sitting and after Campbell’s stop found himself back in the lead, pitting for slicks and setting about a charge back toward the podium places.
Kobayashi’s task to hold onto the lead in the final stint was tough, straight-lining at Tamburello and having to manage his pace for fear of running out of fuel before the end of the race. These factors gave Estre in the #6 car a chance to stake a late claim for victory, but that was affected when the Porsche was handed a five-second time penalty for overtaking during a Safety Car period.
Kobayashi managed proceedings well and was able to push towards the end to ensure Toyota stole victory in Ferrari’s heartland. Porsche rounded out the podium places ahead of fourth-placed Fuoco in the pole-sitting #50 car, which pounced on a mistake from Hartley on the final lap to finish a late race charge.
Hartley completed the top-five with van der Linde in the BMW slipping to sixth after the #20 car was handed a drive-through for a pit-stop infringement. Pier Guidi brought the #51 Ferrari home in seventh, having passed Yifei Ye late on following a late stop from worn wets to slicks.
Completing the top-10 behind Ye in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari was the all-new #93 Peugeot 9X8 driven by Nico Muller, Mikkel Jensen and Jean-Vergne in ninth and the #2 Cadillac V-Series.R in 10th.
The #2 Caddy struggled early on in the dry, but the weather intervention helped the American marque climb back up the order late on.
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