WEC Imola: Ferrari gets 1-2 in qualifying as Valentino…

Ferrari driver Antonio Giovinazzi claimed top spot in qualifying for Sunday's Imola World Endurance Championship round as Valentino Rossi took class pole in LMGT3.

Ferrari made it a good day for the home crowd by following up on Rossi’s performance by blocking out the front row of the grid in the Hyperpole session for the fastest 10 cars in the initial qualifying period.

Giovinazzi posted a 1m28.920s aboard the #51 factory 499P Le Mans Hypercar to end up with a margin of more than seven tenths over the customer Ferrari run by AF Corse and driven by Robert Kubica. Kubica trailed Giovinazzi by eight tenths after the initial push laps, a subsequent improvement to a 1m29.678s failing to trouble the factory car ahead of him.

Second on the grid still represented a major achievement for the privateer side of the AF team. It had to rebuild the rear end of the #83 Ferrari after an engine fire in final free practice ahead of qualifying on Saturday afternoon.

Ferrari, which notched up a 1-2-3 result at the WEC curtain-raiser in Qatar in February, didn’t enjoy the perfect day after ending up at the top of the order in all three practice periods. Antonio Fuoco, pole winner at Imola in 2024, failed to make it through to the Hyperpole session after losing a series of laps to track-limit violations in opening qualifying.

BMW driver Dries Vanthoor, who had equalled Giovinazzi’s mark at the top of the times in FP2 on Friday afternoon, took the third fastest time. The Belgian ended up just over a tenth behind Kubica in the #15 WRT BMW M Hybrid V8 LMDh on a 1m29.885s.

Toyota took fourth and fifth with its pair of GR010 HYBRID LMHs, Ryo Hirakawa improving to 1m30.042s to pip team-mate Nyck de Vries by just a thousandth of a second.

Mick Schumacher took sixth for Alpine on a 1m30.190s in his Signatech-run A424 LMDh after narrowly making it through to Hyperpole: he made a last-gasp improvement after the chequered flag had fallen in the 12-minute opening session to jump into the top 10.

Jean-Eric Vergne took seventh in the #93 Peugeot 9X8 2024 LMH with a 1m30.301s, which just shaded the 1m30.305s from Charles Milesi in the second of the Alpines.

Alex Lynn claimed eighth in the fastest of the Cadillac V-Series.R LMDhs after the car had been repaired following his off right at the start of FP3.

Reigning WEC drivers' champion Kevin Estre ended up slowest in Hyperpole, half a second back from the Caddy.

#46 Team WRT BMW M4 LMGT3: Ahmad Al Harthy, Valentino Rossi, Kelvin Van Der Linde (Photo by: Shameem Fahath)

Seven-time MotoGP conqueror Rossi, meanwhile, claimed his maiden LMGT3 pole driving the #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo. He topped the class times in Hyperpole with a 1m42.355s, which gave him a margin of three tenths over Clemens Schmid’s 1m42.661s in the best of the Auto Sport Promotion Lexus RC F GT3s.

Rossi had set the initial pace during the 10-minute session, only for an improvement to be ruled out for a track-limits violation. That resulted in the BMW being bumped down to fourth, before a further improvement vaulted him back to the head of the order. Schmid would then have taken the pole with 1m42.326s, which he lost to track limits.

Zach Robichon took third for the Heart of Racing squad in the Hyperpole session fought out by the silver-rated driver in each LMGT3 line-up. The Canadian was just a tenth back from Schmid on a 1m42.703s aboard his Aston Martin Vantage GT3.

Simon Mann claimed fourth aboard the #21 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

The Imola 6 Hours, round two of the 2025 WEC, starts at 1pm local time on Sunday.