Imola Post-Race Notebook

Photo: Javier Jimenez/DPPI

***James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi delivered Ferrari’s first world championship sports car victory on home soil in Italy since the 1973 1000km of Monza, when Brian Redman and Jacky Ickx led home a 1-2 finish in a Ferrari 312 PB.

***The trio have taken over the lead of the world drivers’ championship, with a 11-point lead over the third-string No. 83 Ferrari of Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson. Qatar 1812km winners Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen have fallen to third after their zero point score in Imola.

***Ferrari, meanwhile, holds a 29-point lead over BMW in the Hypercar manufacturer’s world championship, with Toyota third, a further ten points back.

***The No. 51 Ferrari 499P led for 111 laps (more than 335 miles) on the same set of Michelin Medium compound tires, with the team electing to triple-stint the tires in the first half of the race.

***Toyota Gazoo Racing Europe technical director David Floury said he has his own “opinion” on the incident between Sebastien Buemi and Antonio Fuoco, which saw the two drivers come to blows in the final 40 minutes while battling on-track for position. Fuoco’s No. 50 Ferrari made contact with the No. 8 Toyota GR010 Hybrid of Buemi, resulting in a left-rear puncture for the Italian.

***Fuoco was handed a post-race time penalty equivalent to a drive-through (45 seconds) for incident responsibility, although it did not change the No. 50 Ferrari’s 15th place result.

*”Floury told Sportscar365: “Fuoco, in his own race, was under a bit of pressure. He exited the track limits in every quali lap yesterday and he hit us in the back three times before he [hit] us in braking into Turn 2. I think he’s under massive pressure and it resulted into this. I can show you pictures of the back of our car; it’s completely broken.”

***Both Toyotas and the pair of Hertz Team JOTA Cadillac V-Series.Rs were the only cars to start the race with Soft tires on the left side of the cars. Floury explained: “We’ve done extensive testing in Free Practice and we knew why we [would] do that. If we race again, I don’t think we could consider changing this strategy.”

***All 18 Hypercar cars finished the race, marking the largest number of top-class prototypes to finish the race in the WEC’s modern era history.

***While the No. 20 BMW used a late fuel stint strategy call to finish second overall, the sister No. 15 car faded to sixth after encountering a loss of performance, with BMW M Motorsport director Andreas Roos indicating that a downforce reduction was likely to blame.

***Roos told reporters: “Maybe we caught something. We have to analyze this. Dries [Vanthoor] said that he was missing front downforce and that the car was understeering. But at [that] stage, there is nothing that you can do so it was then more [about] surviving and maximizing what we still had.”

***Ryan Hardwick became the latest American driver to become a WEC winner, with the Atlanta resident part of the crew for the LMGT3-winning No. 92 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R alongside Richard Lietz and Riccardo Pera. Imola was Hardwick’s first European circuit that he raced on back in Lamborghini Super Trofeo competition in 2017.

***He said: I’m in the motorcycle business. I’ve been a Valentino Rossi fan most of my entire life. To be battling there with his car; they were super fast today, it really makes it special.”

***Pera, meanwhile, joined Giovinazzi and Pier Guidi in an exclusive, four-driver club to have won an Italian WEC race on home soil. Before this weekend, only Alessio Rovera held that distinction after he captured the GTE-Am class victory with AF Corse at Monza in 2021.

***Valentino Rossi took responsibility for the incident with the No. 21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 of Simon Mann while battling for the LMGT3 class lead of the race in the fourth hour, that ultimately resulted in a stop-and-go penalty for the No. 46 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO.

***He said: “I have mixed feelings because a podium is a good result, but we could have won. It’s very unfortunate because the team did a fantastic job, the car was very fast, and we managed the tires well…Unfortunately, I made a mistake and hit the Ferrari in front of me during an overtaking attempt. The subsequent penalty cost us the win. I am sorry for that.”

***Mann, for his part, said after the race that he was not expecting Rossi to make an attempt to overtake at that particular corner. “Valentino just dived to the inside in Rivazza 2 and I had to make my corner,” the American said. “It’s not common to overtake there, so I was not expecting it, but he put his nose in and drove into the back of me. Not much I could have done, there was just no room for two cars.”

***Despite the penalty, Rossi won the Goodyear Wingfoot Award, which came in a fan vote on social media as part of the new-for-2025 voting format.

***Augusto Farfus described the race for the No. 31 The Bend Team WRT BMW as ‘one of those races where everything goes wrong’ after the Brazilian finished twelfth in LMGT3 alongside Yasser Shahin and Timur Boguslavskiy. The car served two penalties (a stop and go for Shahin’s contact with Heart of Racing Team’s Ian James and a drivethrough for an unsafe rejoin at Tamburello) and was later also given a black and orange flag after a peculiar moment in which Farfus accidentally ripped off the car’s left rear wing endplate during a driver change.

***Ben Keating said it was an “Easter miracle” to finish in the points in the No. 33 TF Sport Chevrolet Corvette Z06 GT3.R after it carried 36 kg of success ballast following his, Dani Juncadella and Jonny Edgar’s class win in Qatar.

***Keating overcame an early race incident with the No. 85 Iron Dames Porsche of Celia Martin, who turned around the Bronze-rated Texan in Turn 2. “Unfortunately I got spun around by another car during my stint,” said Keating. “But in a way I was very happy with the way it went down. I was able to keep the car running, didn’t brake and rolled right back into the track and headed into the right direction. We only lost three spots so it didn’t cost us much.”

***Keating and co. continue to lead the LMGT3 standings, with an 11-point margin over second-placed Arnold Robin and Finn Gehrsitz, who teamed with super sub Esteban Masson for a third place class finish on Sunday.

***By finishing second in both Hypercar and LMGT3, Team WRT continued its streak of having at least one car finish on the podium in every race it has entered thus far this year. This includes overall victories in the Michelin 24H Dubai and 6H Abu Dhabi, Meguiar’s Bathurst 12 Hour and the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup opener at Paul Ricard.

***Aston Martin Heart of Racing Team’s official nationality has switched from British to American, as reflected on the entry list from last weekend’s race. The Ian James-led operation has continued to run with the American flag on the pair of Aston Martin Valkyries.

***The reported three-day weekend attendance was 65,500 spectators, down from last year’s figure of 73,600. The decrease in fans could be attributed to the race falling on Easter, a particularly religious holiday in Italy.

***Next up for the WEC is the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps on May 8-10, which will serve as the final round prior to the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June.

John Dagys contributed to this report