WEC 6H Of Imola Review
- therookiereporters
- Apr 21
- 2 min read
The opening round of the world endurance championship took place from the 17th to the 19th of April, here are all the key points of what went down.
The competitive sessions began on the 18th with qualifying bringing the action. With it being the first round of the year everyone was aiming to please. After a strong campaign last year, the number 51 Ferrari AF Corse came through to top qualifying and then hyperpole, with a 1:30.127. They were closely followed by the number 8 of Toyota racing, who came in with a 1:30.138 - a 0.011s gap. This set the pace for a thrilling race.
The race began with a close fight among the Hypercars, with multiple manufacturers getting involved. The Ferrari was quick and gave a challenge to the rest in the opening stints, however the Toyota showed its own strength and came up to battle it, ultimately taking the lead. For the first stint, Alpine was also competitive but lost their fight as the race went on.
As the race went on it became clear that strategy was going to play an important role, pitting was going to determine how the race would go on. The Toyota played this well by basing their tyre changes and driver swaps during virtual safety cars and full course yellows. As a result their time loss was significantly lower and helped them gain an edge over the rest of the field, especially helping them in the fights against Alpine and Ferrari.
In the end the number 8 Toyota put it all together to come in and claim the win with a 13.352 second lead over the number 51 Ferrari after battling all weekend. This marks Toyota’s 50th WEC victory, in their 100th race, displaying that they are competing to be the best. The podium was rounded off by the number 7 Toyota to also give the team a double podium to round off their weekend.
Article written by Imogen Moggridge © Imogen Moggridge 2026
