It was a case of ‘as you were’ when the FIA World Endurance Championship roared back into life at Imola today (14 April), with Ferrari setting the pre-season pace during a damp and overcast morning Prologue test session in Italy.
Eight major marques will contest FIA WEC’s headlining Hypercar category again this year, and a number of them took a turn at the top of the timesheets over the course of three-and-a-half hours of running around the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari.
Ultimately, however, it was the Prancing Horse that cantered to the front of the field, with defending world champion Antonio Giovinazzi pipping last year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Robert Kubica to the fastest time by a slender 0.097secs.
Nicklas Nielsen completed the trio of 499Ps at the summit of the standings – albeit the best part of a second shy of his two Ferrari stablemates – with Norman Nato leading the chase for the opposition in fourth in Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s #12 entry, which is missing Alex Lynn this weekend. The top five was rounded out by René Rast in the best-placed BMW M Hybrid V8.
Elsewhere in the 17-strong Hypercar field, series newcomer Genesis Magma Racing got more than 150 laps under its belt with its pair of GMR-001 prototypes, accumulating vital data ahead of its competitive motorsport debut this weekend and winding up just over two seconds adrift of the outright benchmark.
Ferrari was similarly the brand to beat in LMGT3, with VISTA AF Corse’s Alessio Rovera stopping the clocks a scant 38 thousandths-of-a-second ahead of Finn Gehrsitz – a podium-finisher at Imola last year – as Garage 59 settled rapidly into the groove on its maiden appearance in the championship.
FIA WEC returnee Nicky Catsburg was also in close attendance in third in TF Sport’s Corvette, followed by series rookie Dan Harper in Team WRT’s BMW and Mercedes-AMG driver Maxime Martin for Iron Lynx, meaning five different manufacturers occupied the top five spots – all separated by less than a quarter-of-a-second.
The only red flag of the session was caused by an ‘off’ for Marco Sørensen, who collided with the barriers two hours in behind the wheel of Aston Martin THOR Team’s #009 Valkyrie Hypercar, while the #15 BMW M Hybrid V8 completed just 25 laps due to having to undertake an engine change.
The Prologue continues this afternoon, with a further four-and-a-half hours of track time from 14:00 – 18:30 CEST.
Hypercar
1. Antonio Giovinazzi Ferrari AF Corse 1m31.586s
2. Robert Kubica AF Corse +0.097s
3. Nicklas Nielsen Ferrari AF Corse +0.982s
4. Norman Nato Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA +1.302s
5. René Rast BMW M Team WRT +1.322s
6. Earl Bamber Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA +1.329s
7. Charles Milesi Alpine Endurance Team +1.398s
8. Victor Martins Alpine Endurance Team +1.425s
9. Malthe Jakobsen Team Peugeot TotalEnergies +1.486s
10. Tom Gamble Aston Martin THOR Team +1.489s
LMGT3
1. Alessio Rovera VISTA AF Corse 1m42.875s
2. Finn Gehrsitz Garage 59 +0.038s
3. Nicky Catsburg TF Sport +0.104s
4. Dan Harper Team WRT +0.206s
5. Maxime Martin Iron Lynx +0.245s
6. Esteban Masson Akkodis ASP Team +0.372s
7. Lin Hodenius Iron Lynx +0.414s
8. Kobe Pauwels Heart of Racing Team +0.472s
9. Mattia Drudi Heart of Racing Team +0.499s
10. Davide Rigon VISTA AF Corse +0.650s
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