The No. 7 Toyota GR010 HYBRID of Mike Conway, Nyck de Vries and Kamui Kobayashi scored an impressive victory in Sunday’s 6 Hours of Imola, fighting through rain showers in the final third of the race, creating an enthralling strategic battle between Toyota, Porsche and Ferrari.
After Conway climbed from sixth to third in the first stint, and De Vries steered the car to the lead with an opportunistic move on Miguel Molina, Kobayashi was tasked with taking the wheel for the run to the flag.
He would cross the line just ahead of Kevin Estre in the No. 6 Porsche, who reeled him in during the final hour of the race but couldn’t find a way past him. Kobayashi, who was tasked with holding the lead and saving fuel, held his nerve in what became a gripping, tense finale on the drying circuit.
On the road, it was a tight finish, but the winning margin would grow to 7s after the No. 6 was handed a 5s time penalty after the race for overtaking under safety car. Estre knew he needed to pass the No. 7 and build a lead, but despite his efforts, he would come up just short.
“Nyck and Kamui did a stellar job, especially Kamui at the end as he was fuel saving massively. I don’t think we could have executed the strategy much better. It was really hard in the conditions to read what was going to happen, as it was raining on and off,” Conway said.
“I’m very happy and very thankful to be sharing the car with Mike and Kamui. We deserved this one,” de Vries, after scoring his first WEC overall win, added. “It’s great to be back on the top step, because my last win was the Formula E race in Berlin in 2022.”
Nyck De Vries pulls a very smooth move on Ferrari for P2 đŽâđ¨#WEC #6HImola #Toyota pic.twitter.com/Or3Mk5tFFh
â FIA World Endurance Championship (@FIAWEC) April 21, 2024
The No. 5 Penske Porsche, meanwhile, made it a double podium for the German marque, adding to its strong start to the season which began with a historic 1-2-3 in Qatar back in March.
Ferrari, which dominated qualifying with its 499Ps, heads home with no trophies. A strategy gamble when the rain arrived cost all three 499Ps over a minute.
This was a race that started dry and quickly became all about fuel saving and tire strategy when almost the entire Hypercar field quickly changed to wets following a safety car restart in the fourth hour. Ferrari’s chances of winning quickly faded as strategists chose to keep all three cars out on slicks.
“The information we had on our side was wrong. We thought the weather would be temporary,” admitted Giuliano Salvi, the Ferrari sports car race and testing manager. “Here, at the moment, we need to revise our chain of communication for sure. It was a mistake. We cannot say it was a good race, because we based this on some scenarios that were wrong. But our strategy is not to finger-point.”
With the rain getting heavier and the conditions worsening, the two factory Ferraris sat 1-2 with a comfortable lead, but their advantage wouldn’t last as the team eventually made call to change all three cars to wets too late. This dropped them down the order and ultimately cost the team a famous result on home soil. Had the team split the strategy across its three 499Ps, it may have been a completely different story.
The No. 50 Ferrari came home fourth after polesitter Antonio Fuoco pressured Toyota’s Brendon Hartley into a mistake in the final minutes. Hartley would finish fifth in the No. 8 ahead of the No. 20 WRT BMW which briefly sniffed a podium before two trips to the gravel for Sheldon van der Linde.
AF Corse’s No. 51 Ferrari came home a disappointing seventh, 1.7s ahead of the No. 83 privately-entered 499P, which at least finished first of the privately-entered cars in the Hypercar World Cup. Both JOTA Porsches finished outside the top 10 and the Proton Porsche retired with a mechanical issue.
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In the first half of the race, prior to the rain showers, there were plenty of incidents, including a multi-car pileup at the start which saw three Hypercars end up off the lead lap and out of contention.
Contact at the back of the field into Turn 2, when Jean-Karl Vernay’s Isotta hit the rear of the No. 36 Alpine of Matthieu Vaxiviere, set off a chain reaction which saw the No. 15 BMW of Marco Wittmann and the No. 94 Peugeot 9X8 end up turned around.
“I tried to warm the tires as much as I could, and was cautious as it’s impossible to overtake at the start here. I braked early, locked up everything and made contact with the car in front. I’m sorry about it. I tried to be safe and didn’t take risks,” Vernay, who wasn’t penalized but felt he was at least partially at fault, admitted after his stint.
Both spinning cars sustained significant damage, as did the Isotta, which continued with an Alpine tail light lodged into its front end.
The result was lengthy trips to the garage for the Nos. 15, 94 and 36, which then sustained further damage after an off at Turn 3 immediately after the Turn 2 incident.
Vaxiviere was unable to turn left due to steering damage and ended up running through the gravel and into the tires, collecting a Goodyear advertising board en route. He was later handed a one minute stop-go for causing the incident.
BMW’s No. 15, meanwhile, spent the longest time in the pit box, the car requiring significant repairs, finishing 42 laps off the lead.
In LMGT3, a decision by WRT to stay out on slick tires for the entire race made the difference. The Belgian team’s M4 LMGT3s finished 1-2, scoring BMW its first WEC class win in fine style.
The No. 31 of Augusto Farfus, Sean Gelael and Darren Leung came home first, capturing their first win of the season after hours of fighting with their No. 46 sister car, which eventually dropped time from a drive-through penalty late in the race and finished 22s off the lead.
“It was a crazy race, difficult to read, difficult to make the decisions and really difficult to drive,” said Farfus.
“The team, though, was very calm making the big calls, and that changed the whole end result of the race. I was very confident about it, I felt extremely comfortable behind the wheel, so I could push and they could make some ground.
“BMW is my family,” he added when asked by RACER about the significance of the victory for the brand. “18 years with the company and all of the success I achieved was because I had the propeller on my chest. I’m so thankful for the trust they gave to me for the support in bringing this first victory for them. It’s something very special.”
The pole-sitting Pure Rxcing Porsche, which gambled and took wets, ended up third after controlling the first half of the race. Alex Malykhin was the class of the bronze driver pack in the early stages once again, but the team’s choice to switch to wet weather tires cost it significant time, with Klaus Bachler unable to catch the BMWs late in the race with the car back on slicks.
Off the podium, the No. 55 Vista AF Corse Ferrari 296 came home fourth, after Alessio Rovera muscled past Alex Riberas in the Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage with 13 minutes to go.
It was a strong performance for the No. 55 throughout, after a particularly impressive drive from Francois Heriau at the start when all the Bronze drivers were strapped in. A podium was possible had the team not had to serve a drive-through penalty for track limits.
Heart of Racing, meanwhile, looked capable of challenging at the sharp end but was never really in contention for victory. Its Vantage dropped down the order at the start and spent much of the race battling back and fighting for a top-five finish.
United Autosports’ best-placed McLarenn GT3 EVO, the No. 95 of Josh Caygill, Nico Pino and Marino Sato, was another car that didn’t switch to wet tires. But for the Anglo-American squad, the decision to stay on the Medium Goodyears didn’t prove to be as advantageous as it did for WRT.
Nevertheless, sixth place represents an encouraging points finish for the team, which is still getting up to speed with the McLaren.
The two TF Corvettes failed to feature at the front, coming home seventh and eighth, a lap ahead of the No. 77 Proton Competition Mustang and D’station Aston.
Further down the classification, it was a tough day for Manthey’s second Porsche, which ended up in the barriers as the race started after contact with Sarah Bovy in the Iron Dames Lamborghini. The damage forced Yasser Shahin into the garage for a lengthy spell to replace the front splitter and fenders.
Iron Dames’ tough day continued after. Electrical issues on the car forced the team to work on the Huracan in the pits twice, dropping it more than 20 laps off the lead before retiring it.
“The start was really strange,” Bovy said. “I would like to talk with the other drivers. It was like we started the race and stopped it three times. The guys behind had momentum and the Porsche couldn’t avoid me.
“The car felt OK to drive after, but we started to have electronic issues with the power management. I did a few power cycles but that was not enough.”
Next on the FIA WEC calendar is the 6 Hours of Spa-Francorchamps on May 11.
