Fans everywhere!
The expectation heading into race week was that this year’s 6 Hours of Imola would attract a record crowd for a WEC race outside of Le Mans.
While no official figure is yet known for race day, anecdotally the fan zones and grandstands are all filling fast and look set to be packed all afternoon. There is a real buzz trackside; Round 2 of the season feels like a major event.
The autograph session this morning was extremely well attended too. Hordes of fans, as expected, flocked to the Italian manufacturer garages, and to the WRT LMGT3 pit to meet Valentino Rossi.
22 years and counting for Freitas…
Today marks the 22nd anniversary of FIA WEC race director Eduardo Freitas’s debut as a race director. That first event was one of the Eurosport ‘Super Racing Weekends’ featuring the FIA GT Championship and the European Touring Car Championships.
Remarkably, those combined grids included no fewer than six drivers who are current Team Managers and/or Team Principals in the 2024 FIA WEC: WRT’s Vincent Vosse, Kurt Mollekens and Thierry Tassin, Lamborghini Iron Lynx’s Andrea Piccini, Ferrari AF Corse’s Batti Pregliasco and in the ETCC, TF Sport’s Tom Ferrier.
Proton’s Christian Ried did not compete at that Magny Cours race, he joined his father Gerold in a Proton Porsche from round 4 that season, replacing Mauro Casadei who is also here in the paddock as part of Lamborghini’s customer support management team.
Ferrari Lose Testing Tyre Allocation
Whilst we saw a pair of Stewards decisions published weeks after the opening event at Qatar that saw the Cadillac Racing team disqualified and the Vista AF Corse LMGT3 squad fined, there was another pending investigation/ decision that was passed to the Stewards at Imola to finalise.
The decision relates to the number of tyres used in pre-season manufacturer testing. After AF Corse admitted it had made a mistake in its tyre allocations for the Yas Marina test days in February.
Across two decisions published yesterday, the pair of factory 499Ps (#50 and 51) have had their annual quota of 120 tyres cut by 12 apiece and in the case of the privately-entered #83, that total has been cut by 16 tyres.
Hyperpole Stats
With the results here in Imola Hypercar Hyperpole has now featured no fewer than 14 different cars across both Qatar and Imola.
From the Qatar 10 neither Peugeot, the #2 Cadillac and #38 Hertz team Jota Porsche made it in at Imola, replaced by the #8 Toyota, #83 AF Corse Ferrari, #15 BMW and #99 Proton Porsche.
The BMW’s appearance in the session at Imola was their first in the WEC meaning that only Alpine, Lamborghini and Isotta Fraschini have yet to make the top ten session.
In LMGT3 there’s a similar story with 13 different cars now having featured in Hyperpole, the additions in Italy were the #88 Proton Mustang (the first Hyperpole session for a Ford), plus the #31 BMW and #91 Porsche.
That means that the only brand of the nine featured in the LMGT3 class that has yet to make a Hyperpole session is Lexus.
Safety Car procedure explained
The latest FIA Insights explainer video on YouTube, released this week, focuses on the new safety car procedures used in the WEC and at Le Mans.
With Imola being such a tight circuit, with limited run-off, we may well see the first full safety car period of the season later today!
How to follow
Today’s race at Imola, which starts at 13:00 local time in Italy, can be streamed on the FIA WEC App and website, with live timing available alongside it.
Further details on worldwide TV coverage of the race can be found HERE >>>
