Calado Leads Hanson in Opening Hour at Imola

Photo: Julien Delfosse/DPPI

James Calado led Phil Hanson in a controlling opening hour for Ferrari in the 6 Hours of Imola.

Calado, in the pole-sitting No. 51 Ferrari 499P, held a three-second advantage over Hanson’s third-string No. 83 Ferrari, with Kevin Magnussen having run third in the No. 15 Team WRT BMW M Hybrid V8, some 15 seconds behind Calado.

Hypercar contenders and LMGT3 cars were in the middle of completing their first pit stops with one hour in the books.

Several Hypercars were handed drive-through penalties for Full Course Yellow procedure infractions, including the No. 12 Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.R, the No. 35 Alpine A424 of Ferninand Habsburg.

The No. 5 Penske Porsche 963, meanwhile, was assessed a five-second stop-and-hold on its first stop for a starting procedure infraction.

While the two Toyota GR010 Hybrids swapped positions during the stint, which saw Brendon Hartley move ahead of Mike Conway, the No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari of Nicklas Nielsen made it up from 18th to 11th in the running order during his opening stint.

Contact between the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 of Loic Duval and Earl Bamber’s No. 38 JOTA Cadillac, meanwhile, resulted in a ten-second penalty added to the Frenchman’s next pit stop.

LMGT3 saw the class pole-sitting No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO of Ahmad Al Harthy retake the lead after Francois Heriau was assessed a five-second penalty for a starting procedure infraction during his first stop in the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

Seven other cars were hit with the same penalty.

Heriau passed Al Harthy for the class lead on the restart from the FCY, for track cleanup due to a spin by the No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R of Ben Keating, which was triggered by Iron Dames’ Celia Martin.

Martin later served a drive-through penalty for the incident in Turn 2.

Heriau ran second at the end of the opening hour, with the No. 87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F GT3 third.