What’s the key to success for the FIA WEC’s Hypercar runners on Sunday at the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari? Nailing tyre selection and setting up a car for relatively low temperatures and unpredictable weather fronts, it seems.
As we build up to the second round of the 2025 season, the teams are using free practice today and tomorrow at the fabled Italian circuit to ready themselves for track action in the low 20s (Celsius) and, potentially, changeable conditions, similar to last year’s edition of this race.
For Ferrari, this event presents a huge opportunity. Riding high from its 1-2-3 finish in Qatar to kick off the year, AF Corse is highly motivated to finally score a Hypercar win on home soil. It is also keen to put an end to the persistent chatter about its strategic error in the rain during the 2024 race that cost it a famous victory in front of the Tifosi.
The expectation, according to Mauro Barbieri, Ferrari’s endurance race cars performance simulation and regulation manager, is that the 499Ps will be fighting at the sharp end once again come Sunday. And at this early point of the season, as the Italian marque knows all too well, banking points that will be useful for the title battle later in the year is key.
The 499P has, of course, evolved since we last raced in Emila-Romagna, with a Joker package introduced post Le Mans to improve brake cooling. This, Barbieri says, should translate into gains on this circuit, which is tough on the brakes.
“I think we have a good knowledge of the full package, including the changes we made. This change gives us a better configuration for here and Bahrain, so we should be in a better position with fewer brake temperature issues,” he explains. “But in terms of setup, we will be pretty similar though, because the evo doesn’t make any changes in that respect.”
As for the tyres, management will be key, as it always is in the FIA WEC, but this year at Imola, selection will be too. A change has been made to Michelin’s selection and this will have an impact.
In 2024, the medium and hard compounds were available, whereas this week the soft and medium specs have been chosen. The general consensus is that this is the better choice.
The big question is, how useful will the softs be in the dry over a full stint and will they be effective when bolted to the right side of each car? The allocation for the teams is large enough that using both compounds during the race is not a must.
“We tested here a couple of years ago, and on that occasion, we had the soft and medium, so we do have a reference on this track,” Barbieri adds. “From our perspective, the soft is a better alternative to the hard, because of the peculiarity of this circuit, it makes the soft more drivable than the hard.
“Changeable weather means that with the soft we have a wider window and we expect the warm-up on the soft to be quite faster than the medium, so even if later on it has higher degradation, the amount of time you gain on the outlaps could be useful over two stints.”
Ferrari doesn’t expect an easy ride on Sunday, or a second consecutive dominant 1-2-3 finish. HERTZ Team JOTA’s Cadillac V-Series.Rs look particularly strong out of the gate, and after the disastrous coming together for both its cars in the first race, the entire operation is looking for a reset and another chance to showcase the potential of its two-car effort to General Motors.
“To be totally honest, we’ve barely spoken or thought about Qatar since. Pace was good and what happened, happened,” #12 driver Alex Lynn says.
“It’s an interesting track here, I don’t think anyone’s cars fully suit it, but we’ve (Cadillac) improved a lot since last year, which is great. If it’s wet to dry, dry to wet, it’ll be interesting to monitor tyre selection. I’d only consider running the soft on the right in the wet, damp and transition. For a fully dry race, I’d expect mediums all round.”
The German brands will look to have their say too. BMW Team WRT, after showing real potential in Qatar, is pushing for a podium or better, as is Porsche Penske Motorsport following its disappointing start to the season.
Last year’s Imola winner, Toyota Gazoo Racing, shouldn’t be counted out either, though Kamui Kobayashi was keen to downplay the GR010 HYBRID’s chances of a repeat victory when DSC spoke with him after Free Practice 1.
“It’s early to say, but I think Ferrari looks very strong, as we expected. We need to optimise our car as much as we can. Here it’s not easy to overtake, and we were a bit lucky last year. We need to work hard to catch them. If we can be P5 it would be a good result for us.”
What about the French concern? Alpine’s A424s have shown flashes of potential today. Peugeot, meanwhile, is aiming to spring a surprise. Olivier Jansonnie, the team’s technical director, expects more from its package, a year on from the debut of the 2024-spec 9X8, which has since been updated again over the off-season.
“In terms of how we approach the race, it’s different to last year, with a new car, new track, new everything,” Jansonnie told reporters today. “Now we have more experience and we have references, so we can compare it to what we did last year. We also tested here with other manufacturers recently, though it wasn’t a great test due to the weather.
“We’ve tested quite a lot since Qatar, though, four days, here, Barcelona, Le Castellet and Spa, and we’ve found some interesting performance gains on the car.”
Nevertheless, Ferrari still heads into qualifying and the race as the favourite. The 499Ps look fast, topping both Free Practice 1 and 2 today and all three driver crews are highly motivated to put on a show for the huge crowd that’s expected to turn out on Sunday afternoon.
“The main expectation is to show ourselves that we have improved from last year and are able to make better decisions,” Barbieri concludes. “Last year in terms of performance, we had good pace but had poor execution; we didn’t make the right calls at the right time.
“Hopefully, our work will lead to a better result than last year. It’s not guaranteed we will be as quick as we were last year compared to our competitors. It’s extremely important to prove we grew up.
“We are in good shape with all three cars, and I can’t see any specific driver or crew under specific pressure to deliver results. It will be an interesting race, and qualifying will be important because the field is so close and overtaking is difficult, like Qatar.”
Images courtesy of DPPI
