Ferrari maintained its strong start to the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign in opening practice for this weekend’s 6 Hours of Imola (18-20 April), as Robert Kubica set the pace for the Prancing Horse in FP1 today. Here are the headlines from the session...
The Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari hosts round two of the 2025 FIA World Endurance Championship campaign – the 95th race since the series’ inception in 2012
The undulating challenge of Imola awaits 36 entries and 13 major global manufacturers for what is sure to be a thrilling encounter on Sunday
In damp-but-drying conditions, Robert Kubica led the way in today’s opening free practice, putting Ferrari at the top of the timing screens
The Polish ace posted a 1m32.065s effort in the #83 AF Corse Ferrari on the final flying lap of the session as the track dried almost completely
That benchmark was 0.236secs ahead of the #50 Ferrari AF Corse 499P Hypercar of Antonio Fuoco, who stopped the clocks at 1m32.301s. Fuoco claimed pole position for last season’s inaugural FIA WEC event at Imola
The #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R placed third with Alex Lynn at the wheel, followed by the #51 AF Corse Ferrari in fourth as the sister #38 Cadillac completed the top five positions
Sixth was the #36 Alpine Endurance Team A424 which will be raced by Jules Gounon, Mick Schumacher and Frédéric Makowiecki. Schumacher posted the French outfit’s best FP1 time
The vast majority of competitors began the session on wet-weather Michelin tyres, before switching to slicks roughly 30 minutes into the running
Sunday’s 6 Hours of Imola is set to be a fascinating strategic event with medium and soft tyres allocated for the Hypercars, meaning there is a possibility of triple-stinting the rubber
LMGT3
Augusto Farfus ended the 90-minute session on top of the times in LMGT3 in the #31 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3 EVO he shares with Timur Boguslavskiy and Yasser Shahin
The experienced Brazilian completed a best lap of 1m43.330s in fully dry conditions to shade the #78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3 of FIA WEC returnee Esteban Masson by just 0.093secs
Masson is deputising for the injured Ben Barnicoat in the Japanese sportscar this weekend, sharing with Arnold Robin and Finn Gehrsitz
Team WRT’s sister BMW, the #46 entry that includes Italian hero Valentino Rossi, was third-quickest in-class
Rounding out the top six were the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari, the #87 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus and the #92 Manthey 1st Phorm Porsche, which is looking to bounce back from a tough start to the season in Qatar
Free Practice 2 gets underway at 16.00 local time (CET).
