Toyota Racing’s Ryo Hirakawa was able to hold off a hard charge Sunday (April 19) from Ferrari AF Corse’s Alessandro Pier Guidi. From there, teammate Sebastien Buemi pulled away to win the FIA World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Imola with Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley in the debut race for the new Toyota TR010 Hybrid. It is Toyota’s 50th victory in the WEC in 100 starts.
“We are very happy,” Buemi said after the race. “My teammates did most of the work. Most of the job was done; I just had to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes. Those little [raindrops], they were not easy because you never really know how much you can push. Luckily, the big rain never [came].”
The margin of victory was 13.352 seconds over Ferrari AF Corse’s Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi. The No. 7 Toyota of Mike Conway, Nyck de Vries and Kamui Kobayashi were third, followed by Signatech Alpine’s Antonio Felix da Costa, Ferdinand Habsburg and Charles Milesi. BMW M Team WRT’s Robin Frijns and Rene Rast were fifth.
Calado started from pole and managed to pull out to a comfortable advantage early on. Miguel Molina was able to dispatch of Hartley in the opening laps to give Ferrari an early one-two. This was similar to the pace that Ferrari had shown during Tuesday’s Prologue and in practice earlier in the weekend.
The first safety car period allowed alternate pit strategies to come into play. That allowed Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA’s Will Stevens to come up into the mix as Calado and Hartley battled at the front.
The No. 50 Ferrari and the No. 12 Cadillac were eliminated from contention when both Molina and Stevens copped drive-through penalties for ignoring yellow flags at the exit of Acque Minerali. Molina ended up sixth, while Stevens was 13th.
A second safety car period occurred late in the second hour when Peugeot TotalEnergies’ Nick Cassidy spun at Tamburello and got stuck in the gravel. Cassidy was able to continue after getting pulled away, but ended up three laps down.
The second half of the race saw a duel between Hirakawa and Pier Guidi. Pier Guidi appeared to be the faster of the two drivers, but Hirakawa was able to maintain the advantage while dealing with slower LMGT3 traffic.
Hirakawa gained enough time on a pit stop on the No. 51 Ferrari that Pier Guidi fell out of his immediate slipstream. Once in cleaner air, Hirakawa was able to expand his advantage to more than five seconds.
The final two hours of the race were held in increasingly dark skies. Rain was threatening. That left the teams to decide what to do. At first, there was no precipitation falling. With 90 minutes to go, actual rain began to fall lightly. Enough for the spectators in attendance to break out their umbrellas.
Ultimately, the rain did fall, but never hard enough to get the track wet. It was enough for teams to use their windshield wipers, though.
Once Buemi got in the No. 8 Toyota, he was able to increase his lead substantially. As a result, he was able to simply maintain in the final laps to take the victory.
Sunday was the first-ever race for the new Genesis Magma Racing, fielding the Genesis GMR-001. While the No. 19 spent significant time in the garage early on with mechanical issues, the No. 17 had some speed, especially in the hands of Mathys Jaubert. The team was in the hunt to score a championship point before dropping back to a 15th-place finish.
In LMGT3, Garage 59’s Antares Au started from pole in his McLaren 720S GT3 Evo. While Au led early, the man on the move was Stefano Gattuso in the Proton Competition Ford Mustang GT3 Evo. Starting ninth in class, he quickly moved himself up to third in the first 40 minutes of the race.
A good pit stop for Gattuso along with a slower one for Team WRT’s Anthony McIntosh allowed him to get up to second. Shortly afterwards, the Mustang took the class lead from Au.
Akkodis ASP Team was set up for a good day Sunday, but it fell apart in the first hour. Tom van Rompuy, who started second, ended up in the garage due to a mechanical issue early. Meanwhile, Petru Umbrarescu stopped on the side of the road between Acque Minerali and the Variante Alta with a somewhat similar mechanical issue that ended his day. This brought out the first safety car period.
McIntosh was able to run Gattuso back down and retook the lead in the second hour before the second round of stops, but Garage 59 ended up back in control with Tom Fleming at the wheel.
Garage 59 had an excellent race, but it all fell apart in the final hour. Marvin Kirchhoefer was leading in his McLaren when it simply died exiting Tosa. He was able to get the car back underway, but it died again. Kirchhoefer was forced to limp the McLaren back to the pits. Kirchhoefer, along with Au and Fleming, eventually finished 13th in class, 15 laps down.
Kirchhoefer’s misfortune allowed Team WRT’s Dan Harper to take the class lead. Over the final 40 minutes, TF Sport’s Nicky Catsburg slowly reeled in the BMW. On the final lap, he was right on Harper’s tail, but Harper was able to hold on to take the victory for himself, McIntosh and Parker Thompson.
The margin of victory was .265 seconds over Catsburg, Jonny Edgar and Blake McDonald. The Bend Manthey Racing’s Porsche for Richard Lietz, Riccardo Pera and Yasser Shahin were third, then Manthey DK Engineering’s Timur Boguslavskiy, James Cottingham and Ayhancan Guven. Team WRT’s second car for Augusto Farfus, Sean Galael and Darren Leung were fifth.
FIA World Endurance Championship 6 Hours of Imola Unofficial Results
Next up for the WEC is a trip to Belgium for the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps at the Circuit de Spa-Francorchamps. Coverage from Spa will begin on May 9 at 7:30 a.m. ET on HBO Max. The green flag will fall at 8 a.m. ET.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.