Ferrari Leads First Hour at Imola Amid Chaotic Start

Ferrari maintained its early advantage in the 6 Hours of Imola as the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship got off to a chaotic start with a multi-car impact on the opening lap.

Nicklas Nielsen led the opening hour at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari aboard the No. 51 Ferrari 499P he shares with Antonio Fuoco and Miguel Molina, 1.2 seconds ahead of the sister No. 51 machine driven by Antonio Giovinazzi.

Ex-Formula 1 racer Giovinazzi was able to pick off the No. 83 Ferrari of Robert Kubica at the Tamburello chicane on the opening lap with Kubica coming under early pressure from Laurens Vanthoor in the best of the Penske Porsche 963s, the No. 6 car.

Mike Conway moved up one position to fifth in the No. 7 Toyota GR010 Hybrid ahead of the No. 5 Porsche of Frederic Makowiecki.

The second Toyota of Sebastien Buemi was stuck behind the BMW M Hybrid V8 of Rene Rast in the battle for seventh place, while the two Hertz Team JOTA Porsches completed the top ten.

The safety car was deployed almost immediately following a multi-car collision lower down the Hypercar order that significantly delayed three cars.

Appearing to trigger the incident was the No. 36 Alpine A424 of Matthieu Vaxiviere, who went into the back of the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 of Paul di Resta as the pack bunched up heading into Tamburello for the first time.

Vaxiviere was then seen making contact with the barriers exiting Tamburello, picking heavy front-right damage as a result, with the No. 15 BMW M Hybrid V8 of Marco Wittmann also being tipped into a spin in the process and forcing the sister No. 35 Alpine of Charles Milesi across the gravel.

Isotta Fraschini’s Jean-Karl Vernay was also involved, nosing into the rear of Vaxiviere, but escaping with superficial damage only.

The Alpine returned to the track after spending nearly five minutes in the garage, before Vaxiviere was hit with a one minute stop-and-go penalty for triggering the impact, while the Peugeot resumed after spending two-and-a-half minutes on pit lane.

Worst-impacted was Wittmann’s BMW, which had just left the garage at the one-hour mark, having lost 32 laps.

In LMGT3, poleman Alex Malykhin raced to an early lead in the No. 92 Manthey PureRxcing Porsche 911 GT3 R prior to his first pitstop.

Malykhin was able to pull away from the second-placed No. 46 WRT BMW M4 GT3 of Ahmad Al Harthy to the tune of four seconds, and was running second at the one-hour mark with only the Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F GT3 of Arnold Robin yet to stop.

Al Harthy was second of the cars to have cleared their first stops ahead of the No. 31 WRT BMW of Darren Leung, with Francois Heriau in the No. 55 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3 and Ian James in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo next up.

Two LMGT3 runners were forced into the garage early on following start line contact between the No. 91 Manthey EMA Porsche of Yasser Shahin and the No. 85 Iron Dames Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Sarah Bovy.

Manthey was able to turn around Shahin’s car within 27 minutes, but the Iron Dames Lambo was forced to replace a damaged FIA torque sensor, losing around 29 minutes.

There was also drama for the No. 54 AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Flohr, who got stuck in the gravel at Tamburello, causing an early full-course yellow period.

The No. 88 Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 was shown the black-and-orange flag when the rear diffuser appeared to work its way loose.