Alessandro Pier Guidi, Antonio Giovinazzi, and James Calado have taken victory for Ferrari at the 6 Hours of Imola, the second round of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship.
The car won from pole but Ferrari didn’t have it all their own way, with various tyre and fuel strategies from other manufacturers challenging the Italian manufacturer all race.
In second was Sheldon van der Linde, Rene Rast, and Robin Frijns in the #20 BMW, 8.5 seconds off the winning Ferrari. Third was the #36 Alpine of Mick Schumacher, Jules Gounon, and Fred Makowiecki, a further four seconds adrift.
Calado started the #51 Ferrari from pole and led for the vast majority of his two hour stint. Behind him was the satellite #83 AF Corse Ferrari, which at the start had Phil Hanson at the wheel. The two ran 1-2 until the first round of pitstops after the first hour, and they resumed the lead when the order had shaken out.
The second hour continued in much the same way as the first for the two leading Ferraris, although a safety car an hour and a half in closed the gap Calado had built up.
Despite this, the Briton handed the car over to Giovinazzi in the lead. Giovinazzi led the race for much of his stint, but later lost it as the #6 Porsche, which had started 10th, had used a strategy which enabled them to take the lead.
At the time, Matt Campbell was at the wheel of the car. Laurens Vanthoor had started 10th, but through fuel saving and not changing tyres, the two were able to move up into the lead after the third round of pitstops, just over half way into the race.
Giovinazzi, who pitted after Campbell with the Australian assuming the lead, exited five seconds behind. The Italian, with superior pace in the Ferrari compared to the Porsche, caught Campbell in eight laps.
For a good 10 laps he couldn’t find a way past the Porsche, but eventually Campbell made a mistake at Rivazza 1, going slightly wide into the penultimate corner and giving Giovinazzi the gap and run he needed to pass into Rivazza 2, leading onto the main straight.
Strategies come to a head in second half
Just a few laps after the Italian retook the lead, a virtual safety car was called as the two GT3 leaders had made contact, also at Rivazza 2.
The entire Hypercar field pitted under the VSC. When the race restarted, Pier Guidi, who had replaced Giovinazzi at the wheel of the #51 Ferrari, led from Kevin Estre in the #6 Porsche, with Kamui Kobayashi third in the #7 BMW.
Pier Guidi, on new soft tyres, began to pull out a gap, but with the threat of rain looming, this shrunk as Estre and Kobayashi, on mediums, had more durability. At one Estre was just a few tenths behind Pier Guidi, but on the tight, narrow, old-school Imola circuit he could not find a way through.
However, the softs soon got a second wind, and with the threat of rain dissipating, Pier Guidi soon began to re-extend his gap. He got it up to 10 seconds when the next round of stops started, with just over an hour remaining, but only rejoined fourth.
Ahead of him were Sebastien Buemi, in the #8 Toyota, Pier Guidi’s Italian teammate at Ferrari, Antonio Fuoco in the sister #50 car, and Sheldon van der Linde in the #20 BMW.
These cars had gone off strategy earlier in an attempt to ‘do something different’, pitting later for fuel and running longer. This had the track position benefit, but meant their final stop would be longer than the splash Pier Guidi would need, costing them time.
Ferrari makes the strategy work with a splash
Buemi and Fuoco, meanwhile, were battling for the lead. Lap after lap, Buemi positionred his Toyota just right to stop Fuoco overtaking in his scarlet red Ferrari, on a track where overtaking spots are at a premium.
It had to come to head at some point, and it did. Fuoco’s patience finally ran out and, visibly frustrated, he got alongside in a gap just big enough for a Ferrari 499P to fit in. However, Buemi, in his typical aggressive driving style, closed the gap and the two made contact, sending both of them into the gravel.
Both were able to keep going and rejoin the track, but Fuoco had a left rear puncture for his trouble. He proceeded to trundle round on a rapidly deflating Michelin, pitting and taking himself and the team out of contention for a points finish.
Buemi pitted soon after, promoting Sheldon van der Linde to the lead in the #20 BMW, with Pier Guidi second. With just under half an hour to go, the South African pitted too, giving the #51 Ferrari the lead again.
Pier Guidi, though, also needed a splash of fuel to make it to the end. He pitted on lap 203, with roughly 13 minutes remaining, exiting in second behind Robert Kubica in the #83 Ferrari. The Pole also needed more fuel, and he duly stopped two laps later, with under 10 minutes to go.
While S. van der Linde, now second after the stops shook out, closed the gap from 12 seconds to under nine, he ran out of time to get properly onto the back of the winning Ferrari, and that was how it finished.
Schumacher was third for Alpine, with Kubica fourth, 8 seconds adrift of the German. Fifth was Buemi, whose alternate strategy didn’t quite work to score a podium. Sixth was Dries Vanthoor in the #15 BMW, alongside his teammates Raffaele Marciello and Kevin Magnussen. Magnussen ran third early on after retaining the position at the start, but they gradually slipped back and finished behind their BMW teammates.
Seventh was Kamui Kobayashi in the #7 Toyota, while eighth went to Kevin Estre in the #6 Porsche. Although they’d led earlier with Campbell, once again the strategy didn’t work out for them to score more points and finish higher up.
Ninth was the #93 Peugeot with Mikkel Jensen taking the car to the finish, while 10th went to the #12 Cadillac of Norman Nato.
See the full results on the FIA WEC website.
Discussion about this post