Imola Friday Notebook

Photo: Jurgen Tap/Porsche

***The result from Friday’s second Free Practice session marks only the second time in FIA World Endurance Championship history that a dead heat has been recorded. The only other time it occurred was during qualifying for the 2014 Six Hours of Shanghai, when Porsche drivers Romain Dumas and Neel Jani captured pole with an identical time compared to Toyota pairing Anthony Davidson and Sebastien Buemi. It should be noted that that was a combined average time, as WEC’s qualifying format still featured multiple drivers back then.

***This weekend marks the 95th WEC race since the world championship’s inception at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in 2012. The 100th race will come at this year’s 6 Hours of Fuji.

***Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA driver Alex Lynn believes it’s going to be an “intense” race with the likelihood of changing conditions and three different tire options, when factoring in the Michelin wet weather compound, into the mix alongside the Soft and Medium slicks.

***Lynn said: “I think the weather on Sunday is going to play a big part in that with the two different compounds and the wet. The [wet] to slick transition is very important. Some cars work really well in that condition, some are worse. Generally I think Sunday’s race is going to be intense from the cockpit, whether it’s traffic or weather, I think it’s going to be a good race and stressful from behind the wheel.”

***Toyota Gazoo Racing’s Mike Conway added: “It’s all going to be about what you’re going to do in terms of stint lengths in the race. That’s going to determine what we’re going to choose. The [tire] deg here is not that bad so we’ll just see how we can manage that.”

***Mauro Barbieri, Ferrari’s performance and regulations manager, welcomed Michelin’s decision to make the Soft compound of tires available to teams this weekend, describing them as “a better alternative” to the Hard compound that was used last year.

***Barbieri said: “The surface roughness and the energy that you put on the tires makes the Soft a more drivable option than the Hard,” he said. “Then, of course it’s random, but having this changeable weather conditions, the Soft is giving you a wider window to work.”

***Furthermore, Barbieri indicated the usage of the Soft tires could also add a new strategic element to the race, saying: “We expect the warm-up to be quite faster on the Soft than on the Medium. So even if, later when the pace could be slower due to the Soft tire degradation, the amount of time that you gain in the out lap thanks to the quicker warm-up could be worth [it] and keep you faster after two stints or so.”

***The No. 5 Porsche 963 will have to serve two separate penalties during Friday’s third and final Free Practice session. The first, a one-minute stop and hold, was handed out after Julien Andlauer accessed the fast lane before the three minutes signal in Free Practice 2. During the same session, Mathieu Jaminet was then found to be in constant abuse of track limits, resulting in another five-minute stop and hold penalty on top of the earlier infraction.

***Since the previous round in Qatar, three manufacturers (Alpine, BMW and Toyota) have sought either clarifications or procedural tweaks regarding the new driver weight system that was introduced for this season. Most notably, Toyota Gazoo Racing team manager John Steegs proposed to introduce “random weight checks during the race, which would see a driver step onto the scale when he/she comes out of the car.” This would replace the current system, which gives technical delegates the discretion to request random driver weight checks at any time up to 4 hours prior to the start of the race.

***Toyota’s proposal was rejected by the championship, which stated that article 7.3.4 of the sporting regulations already gives technical delegates the authority to check weights at any time during the competition, which includes the race if required.

***Notably, a separate request filed by BMW M Team WRT to move the deadline for the declaration of driver weights to the end of pre-race scrutineering checks on Thursday at 7 p.m. CEST (1 p.m. EDT) was accepted. Previously, this was set at the conclusion of pre-race administrative checks, which placed the deadline six hours earlier on the same day.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing driver and team principal Kamui Kobayashi will miss a Super Formula event for the first time in nearly four years as a result of his WEC commitments, with the single seater series in action at Motegi this weekend. Kobayashi was last forced to skip a Super Formula round due to a WEC clash during the Bahrain double header at the end of 2021.

***Both Sebastien Buemi and Nyck de Vries “should be with” Toyota for the 6 Hours of São Paulo despite a clash with the ABB FIA Formula E World Championship according to Toyota WEC technical director David Floury, who has strengthened his stance on the situation since asking back in February during the Qatar season opener.

***Floury indicated that their contracts give precedence to Toyota’s WEC program, although the weekend will mark the first post-Le Mans clash in recent memory. “After Le Mans, we will review depending on their positions in their respective championships, obviously,” Floury said. “The target is to have both of them with us.”

***Peugeot Sport technical director Olivier Jansonnie clarified that its reserve driver, Theo Pourchaire, will be on-site in São Paulo but may not necessarily race. The French brand is expecting for both Stoffel Vandoorne and Jean-Eric Vergne to miss the WEC round.

***Iron Lynx will further add to its Le Mans preparation program for Stephen and Brenton Grove by entering the International GT Open season opener at Portimao later this month. Previously, the team already confirmed an entry in the Michelin 12H Misano on May 23-25, during which team boss Andrea Piccini will make his first race start since 2021.

***No fewer than six drivers (Augusto Farfus, Kelvin van der Linde, Laurens Vanthoor, Alessandro Pier Guidi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Christian Ried) were found to have exceeded the pit lane speed limit during Free Practice 1, all resulting in fines and the deletion of lap times. Notably, Van der Linde was found to have committed the infringement twice, while Ried was the heaviest offender by going 11 kph (6.8 mph) over the limit, resulting in a fine of €1,100 ($1,250 USD).

***The support bill for this weekend’s event consists of two championships, with the Porsche Carrera Cup Deutschland joined by the Italian X-GT4 Supersport GT series. The field for the latter consists a mixture of various single-make cars from the likes of Lamborghini, Porsche and Ferrari, as well as a GT4 class that features three Lotus Emira GT4s.

***Saturday’s schedule features the final on-track running ahead of Sunday’s six-hour race, with the third and final Free Practice session at 10:40 a.m. CEST (4:40 a.m EST), followed by qualifying at with FP2 to follow at 2.30 p.m. local time (8:30 a.m. EST).

John Dagys and Jamie Klein contributed to this report