Imola Tuesday Notebook
Photo: Florent Gooden/DPPI
***FIA World Endurance Championship teams completed the category’s compressed single-day Prologue pre-season test on Tuesday at a soggy Imola Circuit, which was led by Ferrari in a 1-2-3 run for the Prancing Horse on home soil. Heart of Racing, which had a mixed day after a heavy accident for its No. 009 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Marco Sorensen, led the way in LMGT3 with its No. 27 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo of Mattia Drudi.
***Toyota may not have featured towards the top of the Prologue timesheets with its new TR010 Hybrid, but it did finish at the head of the laps completed leaderboard. Out of all eight Hypercar manufacturer teams (not including the mileage from the satellite AF Corse No. 83 Ferrari 499P), it clocked up 456 laps around the Imola track, ten more than the next best, Peugeot’s 9X8.
***In contrast, unsurprisingly, Aston Martin propped up that table as the No. 009 Valkyrie required a chassis change following Sorensen’s morning crash and therefore did not head out in the afternoon. Aston achieved 185 laps during the day, the next fewest was WRT’s BMW M Hybrid V8s, which managed 343.
***It was a very solid debut WEC event appearance for Genesis Magma Racing as its new GMR-001s clocked up a total of 356 laps. “It was not a bad result, we had a few issues here and there, but nothing major, and we managed to do some test items,” said Andre Lotterer. “It didn’t look too bad for our first day in the championship.”
***Michelin’s request to allow the re-grooving of its wet-weather tires for the Hypercar category for today’s Prologue-only was approved by the WEC Committee, with only one set of the tires made available to teams over the course of the testing, which started as declared wet track. The re-grooved tires will not be eligible for official sessions later this weekend.
***The wet running on Tuesday limited the use of Michelin’s new line of Pilot Sport Endurance slicks, which debuted in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona and are set to make its first WEC race appearance this weekend. Hypercar teams are eligible to select between the Soft and Medium compounds this weekend, with the Soft the required compound to be used during Hyperpole.
***Hypercar teams will have three available sets of Michelin tires for Free Practice, one set for Hyperpole and 4.5 sets for qualifying and each six-hour race weekend. The race allocation will increase to eight sets for the currently scheduled longer races in Qatar and Bahrain at the end of the season.
***As was the case last year, the different compounds will be identified by different colored sidewalls: Soft (white), Medium (yellow), Hard (red) and Wet (blue).
***While the tail end of the this year’s WEC calendar is not expected to be officially confirmed until later in the summer, ACO President Pierre Fillon confirmed to Sportscar365 that the 2027 schedule will be announced at this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans, as has become a recent tradition.
***It’s still unclear whether there will be a ninth round in the season next year, with Silverstone having been the most widely reported venue for a possible expansion.
***Sportscar365 understands that pre-event ticket sales for this weekend are on track to surpass the current three-day WEC attendance record at Imola, which was set in 2024 at a reported 73,600 spectators. Last year’s event, which was held on Easter Sunday, saw a dip to 65,500 in attendance.
***Aston Martin announced on Tuesday that Drudi has been named the official reserve driver for the Heart of Racing Valkyrie program, across both WEC and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship campaigns, effective immediately. The 27-year-old Italian, who first drove the car in last year’s Bahrain rookie test, is again undertaking a full WEC season in the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo in LMGT3.
***Heart of Racing team principal Ian James said: “Mattia’s performance aboard Valkyrie at the WEC rookie test in Bahrain last year was extremely impressive. In Mattia we have one of the world’s best GT drivers within the Aston Martin family who will be ready, if called upon, to show off his talent in either the Hypercar or GTP categories.”
***Following his Hypercar debut in last year’s Bahrain rookie test, Kelvin van der Linde took part in his second test in the BMW M Hybrid V8 at Sebring International Raceway in February, although according to BMW M Motorsport boss Andreas Roos, there are no active race plans for the South African this year, despite BMW Team WRT utilizing only two-driver lineups this weekend because of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship clash with Long Beach.
***Roos told Sportscar365 of Kelvin’s recent second test: “That’s the normal process of what we do. Dan Harper, Max Hesse, Charles Weerts and also Valentino Rossi, they’ve all driven the car already, and also Kelvin. This is our normal ‘build up’ of what we do to also give other drivers a chance and also to possibly prepare drivers for the future. In the end it’s also good to have these guys in. Kelvin is also doing a lot of simulator work for us. It’s also important for him to know the real car to give us the right feedback.”
***Both BMW and Cadillac do not have reserve drivers on-site this week. Heart of Racing is the only other team with two-driver squads at Imola.
***In a change for this year, all WEC teams are required to install and manage a camera in each pit box for monitoring purposes. Per a bulletin, the camera must be oriented towards the car, as it is in the pit stall at an angle of 25 degrees from a horizontal plane. The feeds must be made available to the stewards via Alkamel Systems.
***Teams are also now required to broadcast a live video feed of its garage on a display attached to their paddock dividers between each team truck.
***Late race penalties now declared within the final 15 minutes of the race, where the car does not serve the penalty in-race, will be converted into a time or lap penalty. The previous threshold was the final five laps of each race. There have also been minor tweaks to the safety car pass-around procedure.
***Among the other changes to the sporting regulations for this year state that a Hypercar manufacturer’s two-car entry must be made “under the same name appearing on the Competitor license” effectively disallowing a manufacturer’s two-car quota to be filled by two different teams.
***It is now required for two cars entered by the same team running the same livery to run with different color side mirrors from each other to aid visual differentiation.
***Driver suits are now subject to regulations regarding visibility of the logos of the tire suppliers, Michelin and Goodyear respectively for Hypercar and LMGT3. Previously, such rules only applied to car liveries.
***The usual 30-day ban on testing at a particular venue prior to it hosting a round of the championship has been relaxed for Imola and Spa, with testing permitted up to 14 days prior to the start of the event. Ferrari took advantage of this to test at Imola on Mar. 31.
***Two-time GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup champion Vincent Abril announced last week that he’s taking a step back from professional racing. The former AF Corse-contracted driver, who made three starts in the 24 Hours of Le Mans from 2019-22, previously served as a Bentley factory driver.
***Abril wrote on social media: “These last years have opened parallel opportunities and made me enjoy and expand for my future life goals. I am relieved and very excited of my new ventures. Professional racing has been my entire life and I’ve made a living for the last 11/12 years of one of the most beautiful job there is. I am eternally grateful to the people I met along the way, the good, the bad, the competitors and the passionate fans.”
***The 31-year-old Monegasque added that he still plans to take part in selected “Pro-Am events with friends.”
***With the Prologue now in the books, Wednesday and Thursday will serve as rest and rebuild teams for teams, although there will be a number of media-related sessions for drivers and team management. Free Practice 1 kicks off official track action on Friday at 10:15 a.m. CET (4:15 a.m. EST).
Stephen Lickorish & Jamie Klein contributed to this report
Source: Sports Car 365