Toyota leads Ferrari in the Hypercar category as the 6 Hours of Imola reaches two-thirds distance, with TF Sport and Garage 59 scrapping over the LMGT3 class lead...
Toyota hit the front at Imola after a triple tyre stint at the start of the race paid off; Ryō Hirakawa took over from team-mate Brendon Hartley, who had nursed the Michelin rubber through the opening two hours
Hirakawa was then able to fend off Alessandro Pier Guidi in the #51 Ferrari AF Corse 499P through most of the fourth hour, as the pair lapped nose-to-tail but the Toyota driver was able to control the pace
Pier Guidi and Ferrari attempted to undercut the TR010 Hybrid by stopping earlier, but the Italian was slightly delayed entering the pits and was unable to get ahead when Hirakawa himself pitted; that preserved the status quo, with the Japanese ace pulling away to establish an advantage of five seconds
A ferocious battle played out for third position between António Félix da Costa in the #35 Alpine and the #7 TOYOTA RACING entry of Nyck de Vries
The FIA WEC-returning da Costa struggled to hold off the flying Dutchman, who had a clear tyre advantage as the fourth stint came to a close and was able to move ahead into third, while the Alpine dropped to sixth
Between them in fourth and fifth places are the #83 AF Corse Ferrari (Yifei Ye) and #15 BMW (Raffaele Marciello)
The other BMW M Hybrid V8 driven by Robin Frijns runs seventh ahead of the highest-placed Peugeot, now in the hands of Théo Pourchaire
Completing the current top ten are the #007 Aston Martin with Tom Gamble aboard and the #38 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA (Sébastien Bourdais)
Genesis Magma Racing came into contention for a possible points-scoring debut as Mathys Jaubert ramped up the pace in the #17 GMR-001, sitting an excellent 11th as the fifth hour began
The #12 Cadillac and #50 Ferrari both fell down the order after picking up drive-through penalties for Virtual Safety Car (VSC) infringements. They run 12th and 15th respectively at the four-hour mark, although Nicklas Nielsen set the fastest lap of the race in his efforts to fight back into the points-scoring positions
At the start of the third hour, Nick Cassidy spun out at Tamburello after exiting the pits and getting a snap of oversteer on cold tyres; the #93 Peugeot 9X8 had to be pulled out of the gravel, which prompted the race’s second VSC and subsequently triggered a full safety car period
LMGT3: Leader after 4 Hours – #33 TF Sport Corvette
TF Sport moved to the front in the LMGT3 category following a stellar stint from Jonny Edgar, who is sharing the #33 Corvette with Blake McDonald and Nicky Catsburg this weekend
The #69 Team WRT BMW continued to lead at the mid-stage phase of the race, as Parker Thompson took over from the highly impressive Anthony McIntosh
The retro-liveried ‘Tic-Tac’ BMW held a slender advantage over the TF Sport Corvette and the #10 Garage 59 McLaren, but all that changed when the safety car was summoned, elevating Edgar to the lead and qualifying star Tom Fleming to second place
With the latter on fresher tyres, the two engaged in a classic wheel-to-wheel battle as the fifth hour approached, with Edgar resisting the pressure to just maintain his lead
Thompson continued in third position, with a large gap over the second of the McLarens in the hands of a rapid Finn Gehrsitz
The top six is completed by the #88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang and the #34 Racing Team Turkey Corvette, now occupied by FIA WEC debutant Peter Dempsey
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