Antonio Giovinazzi leads Porsche’s Laurens Vanthoor and Toyota’s Mike Conway after the first hour of the 6 Hours of Imola.
Giovinazzi took second from Kubica at the start, with polesitter Nicklas Nielsen retaining the lead, but 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.
In LMGT3, Alex Malykhin led from the start and continues to lead with one sixth of the race completed. At the start, Sarah Bovy in the #85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 and Yasser Shahin, in the #91 Manthey EMA Porsche 911 GT3 R, made contact on the start finish straight, with Shahin being pushed into the barriers.
He was able to recover, with damage, and made it back to the pits. The Iron Dames car also had to pit as a result, as the torque sensor on the car had failed, requiring the team to fix it.
Once the safety car came in, the leading Ferraris began to stretch their legs. After a very brief full course yellow for debris at turn 4, Nielsen was told to push, subsequently setting a 1:32.500, the race’s fastest lap thus far, and opening a 3 second gap to Giovinazzi behind.
However, this gap didn’t stay for long. Thomas Flohr, in the #54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3, crashed at Tamburello, using too much kerb and spinning into the gravel on the inside of the chicane which starts the lap. With the car beached, a full course yellow car was called to recover the car.
Once the race went green again, the gap had fallen to just two seconds covering the top 4, with Laurens Vanthoor in the #6 Porsche 963 keeping up, just, with the Ferraris of Nielsen, Giovinazzi, and Kubica.
The pitstop cycle then started. Curiously Nielsen lost out and slipped to sixth, with Vanthoor and Conway now second and third behind new leader Giovinazzi. Kubica is fourth with Fred Makowiecki in the sister #5 Porsche fifth, and Nielsen sixth.
Malykhin continues to lead the LMGT3 class, with the two Team WRT BMWs second and third, Amhad Al Harthy in the #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3 followed by Darren Leung in the #31 sister car.
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