6 Hours of Imola

This 2026 FIA WEC 6 Hours of Imola race report was compiled by regular endurance-racing correspondent and motorsport fundi, Dr Nick van der Meulen.

The 6 Hours of Imola was due to be the second round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship. Due to geopolitical events, however, the Qatar 1812 km event was postponed to 24 October 2026. The Official Prologue (i.e. test) was shifted to 14 April at Imola as preparation for the six-hour event.

The Imola circuit, officially known as Autodromo Dino e Enzo Ferrari, requires no introduction to motorsport fans. The circuit has been a venue to much tragedy in its history, which we will not go into here. It ran its first race (a motorcycle event) in 1953 and the first World Sportscar Championship event at Imola took place in 1965. In its current guise, WEC raced here in 2011 and again from 2024. There have been some stellar WEC races here. In 2024, Kamui Kobayashi (Toyota) defended his lead mightily against a charging Kevin Estre (Porsche) to take a nailbiting victory. Last year’s event saw Ferrari take victory in front of their adoring Tifosi.

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Chopping and Changing

There have been some movement in the off season. From a manufacturer perspective, Porsche withdrew from the Hypercar class, but still competes in the LMGT3 class. The German marque still competes with its 963 machine in IMSA, where it lead the championship proceedings. While Porsche has departed from Hypercar, Genesis made their debut at Imola this weekend. McLaren has also announced their intention to join the Hypercar class in 2027. Toyota are sporting a new look car, while the other marques have made more minor changes to their mounts.

Driver Market

From a drivers’ perspective, Genesis will field André Lotterer, Luis Derani and Mathys Jaubert in the #17 machine. Matthieu Jaminet, Paul-Loup Chatin and Daniel Juncadella race in the #19 car. Mick Schumacher has left WEC to join Indycar, while another F1 pilot, Logan Sargeant joins Ford Racing in LMGT3. Nick Cassidy (#93) and Theo Pourchaire (#94) have both joined Peugeot. The van der Linde brothers are missing from the WEC grid: Sheldon races the BMW M Hybrid in IMSA, while Kelvin is in a GT3 BMW in DTM for 2026. Valentino Rossi, has moved to the Intercontinental GT3 series, driving for the same team (WRT) and taking his number 46 with him. Jensen Button retired from racing at the end of last season, leaving a gap in the Cadillac #38 line up.

Early Pace

Ferrari dominated the Official Prologue, taking the top three positions on the timesheets, while the two Toyotas racked up over 450 laps between them on the day. The Ferraris were a good half a second faster than their rivals per lap. The LMGT3 class was much closer with Heart of Racing Aston Martin just edging Vista AF Corse Ferrari and Garage 59 McLaren. The top three were covered by less than 0,15 seconds!

Qualifying for race day, however, was a different issue. Yes, Ferrari claimed pole position, but it certainly wasn’t in the dominant manner as demonstrated in the Official Prologue. The top four were covered by less than a tenth of a second, while the top nine qualifiers were covered by less than half a second! Ferrari AF Corse #51 (Calado/Pier Guidi/Giovinazzi) took the lead at the start, with the marque running a strategy of putting the sister #50 (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen) machine on soft rubber. The move paid off and #50 slotted into second place by the second lap. While this scenario was well received by the Tifosi, the tables were turned as the race progressed.

Back to the Front

Toyota Racing’s heavily revised mount showed immediate pace and #8 (Hirakawa/Hartley/Buemi) ran at the front of the field, vying for the lead throughout. Their pace and strategy, also bringing #7 (Conway, de Vries/Kobayashi) into play, ensured #8 scoring the marque’s 50^th victory in what was their 100^th start – an extraordinary achievement. To underline the team’s competitiveness, #7 finished a fine third.

“This feels so good,” enthused Hartley, whose last win came in the final race of 2024 in Bahrain. “The big, crucial thing happened yesterday with Ryō putting it on the front row in qualifying, which came out of nowhere – we weren’t expecting that and it gave us a tailwind going into the race.”

Ferrari had to be content with #51’s runner-up finish, while #50 could only manage sixth place at the fall of the chequered flag. The marque’s private entry, AF Corse #83 (Ye/Kubica/Hanson), battled to claim the final point on offer.

Other Challengers

Alpine #35 (Da Costa/Milesi/Habsburg) demonstrated pace in FP2, topping the timesheets and they showed well in the race. While they were running in the top three in the race’s earlier stages, they slipped out of podium contention at the finish. They will take heart in their fourth-place classification, although the sister car (#36, Makowiecki/Gounon/Martins) didn’t score.

Cadillac had some strong showings during the race, with #12 (Stevens/Nato) running as high as second at one stage. It was the #38 (Bamber/Bourdais) sister machine that scored points, however, finishing eighth. BMW did well to have both their Hypercars score points. They appeared to lack the raw speed of their rivals, but finished well with #20 (Frijns/Rast) finishing fifth and #15 (Marciello/Magnussen) seventh, respectively.

Aston Martin was the only other manufacturer to score points, with the #007 (Tincknell/Gamble) machine finishing ninth. Peugeot and Genesis were the only two Hypercar manufacturers not to score. Genesis did a good job gaining race experience on debut.

LMGT3

The LMGT3 class was a closely fought affair. Garage 59 Mclaren #10 (Au/Fleming/Kirchhöfer) took pole position, but had to fight throughout the race to maintain position. They looked very comfortable in the closing stages, before disaster struck. With 35 minutes remaining, the #10 began coasting and was forced to retire with alternator failure. WRT BMW #69 (McIntosh/Parker/Harper), a new team of drivers racing together for the first time, was the major beneficiary and took over the lead to take a dramatic victory.

The team pipped TF Sport Corvette #33 (McDonald/Edgar/Catsburg) for victory by less than half a second, after a frenetic battle. The two Matthey Porsche entries, #92 (Shahin/Pera/Lietz) and #91 (Cottingham/Boguslavsky/Güven), finished third and fourth, respectively. WRT’s second entry, #32 (Leung/Gelael/Farfus) rounded off the top five finishers. The two Akkodis Lexus entries ground to a halt at a similar time in the race with different technical issues. Ford #88 (Gattuso/Levorato/Sargeant) led at one stage and furiously battled to keep #69 at bay, but could not contain the BMW and eventually slipped down the order to finish eighth.

The second round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship, the TotalEnergies 6 Hours of Spa-Franchorchamps, takes place on 9 May.