Antonio Giovinazzi took pole for the FIA World Endurance Championship season opener at Imola, but the Italian in the #51 Ferrari had to dig deep to beat Toyota’s Ryo Hirakawa, who was just 0.011 slower.
Giovinazzi set his fastest lap, a 1:30.127, on his final flying lap after Hirakawa had appeared to have pipped him to pole. Third was the sister #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, a further 0.029 off Giovinazzi, in an extremely tight qualifying session.
The initial Hypercar qualifying session saw 7 cars knocked out, including the #38 Cadillac of Earl Bamber, the #36 Alpine of Jules Gounon, both Aston Martin Valkyries, the #93 Peugeot of Stoffel Vandoorne, and the new Genesis Magma Racing cars, driven by Mathieu Jaminet and Andre Lotterer.
The Alpines and Malthe Jakobsen, the rapid young Dane in the #94 Peugeot, were fastest in the first few minutes of this initial session. But as expected, the Ferraris came through to take the top spot, with Fuoco top by the end of the session and Robert Kubica, in the ‘satellite’ #83 AF Corse Ferrari, second. Third was Nyck de Vries in the #7 Toyota.
Going into Hyperpole, Jakobsen set the first representative lap, a 1:30.545, in the #93 Peugeot. The Dane then improved to a 1:30.237, still fastest.
However, Giovinazzi then came through to go quicker, with a 1:30.183. His teammate Fuoco in the other car then demoted Jakobsen to third.
However, the Peugeot driver had more to give, improving to a 1:30.200 and taking second off Fuoco.
Curiously absent from the top of the timesheets so far were the two Toyotas, with Hirakawa still at the wheel of the #8 machine. On his final lap, the Japanese driver set a 1:30.138 to take a sensational pole off Ferrari at their home track.
Or so it seemed. Giovinazzi had started another lap, taking a personal best in the second sector. While both his first and third sectors were marginally slower than Hirakawa, the second sector was over a tenth quicker, giving Giovinazzi pole by just 0.011.
Third was Fuoco, who had set his final lap just 30 seconds after Jakobsen, beating the Dane by 0.033. This put the top 4 on the grid within 0.073 of each other!
Fifth was Norman Nato in the #12 Cadillac, with sixth going to #7 Toyota’s Nyck de Vries. Charles Milesi was seventh in the #35 Alpine, with Robert Kubica in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari eighth. Ninth and 10th went to the two BMWs, with Robin Frijns in the #20 BMW ahead of his teammate Kevin Magnussen in the #15.
Fleming claims debut WEC pole
Meanwhile in LMGT3, WEC debutant Thomas Fleming took pole in the #10 Garage 59 McLaren, on the team’s debut in WEC after replacing United Autosports as the McLaren customer GT3 team for 2026.
Fleming set a 1:41.181, and was on top of the times for the majority of the session. He was followed by the two ASP Lexus cars, Hadrien David in the #78 Lexus 0.226 off Fleming, followed by Clemens Schmid in the #87 machine.
However, before this was initial LMGT3 qualifying session, to decide the top 10 fastest cars who would compete for pole.
Fastest in this session was Peter Dempsey in the #34 Racing Team Turkey TF Sport Corvette. He set a 1:41.642 to go quickest, 0.673 faster than Anthony McIntosh in the #69 WRT BMW M4 GT3. Third fastest was the sister WRT BMW, the #32 of Darren Leung, who was a further tenth off Dempsey.
However, more importantly were the cars going out. This included the #92 Manthey Porsche of Yasser Shahin, the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Ian James, the #77 Proton Competition Ford of Eric Powell, the #33 TF Sport Corvette of Blake McDonald, the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin of Gray Newell, the #58 Garage 59 McLaren of Alexander West, the #79 Iron Lynx Mercedes of Johannes Zelger, and finally the #54 AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Flohr.
This meant that the only team without a car in LMGT3 Hyperpole was the Heart of Racing and Aston Martin, with both cars not able to make it through. Conversely, both ASP Lexus cars did make it through, along with both WRT BMWs.
Once LMGT3 Hyperpole started, Fleming was immediately on top in his and Garage 59’s debut WEC competitive session. While Clemens Schmid did have a small off track excursion at Rivazza, the last set of corners before the main straight to finish the lap, he and Hadrien David were able to take second and third behind Fleming.
Fourth and fifth were the two WRT BMWs, Parker Thompson in the #69 car ahead of teammate Sean Gelael in the sister #32.
Discussion about this post