Ferrari’s form from the Prologue continued this morning in Free Practice 1 ahead of the 6 Hours of Imola. With the sun shining, Robert Kubica put the #83 to the top of the screens on a full set of soft Michelin tyres, with a 1:31.739.
Teams in Hypercar used the session to experiment with the soft and medium compounds, with the #83 running on a full set of softs early to achieve the session best time and other teams using either a combination of softs on the left and mediums on the right, or mediums on all four corners.
The #50 was second in the order, with a lap 0.023 off Kubica from Antonio Fuoco. The #51 completed the top three, with a best time of 1:31.982 from Antonio Giovinazzi.
Best of the rest was the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series R, with a 1:32.183 from Will Stevens early in the 90 minutes of track action. The two Peugeots completed the top five.
Further down the order in the Hypercar class, Genesis Magma Racing, in its first practice session as a factory in the WEC, enjoyed a productive session. The two GMR-001s set lap times within two seconds of the fastest Ferrari, and completed more than 45 laps.
Also of note was the presence of the #009 Aston Martin. The Heart of Racing team-run Valkyrie, built around a new tub after Marco Sorensen’s off in the test, completed 40 laps and ended up 16th in the order.
LMGT3 was topped by Racing Team Turkey’s TF Sport-run Corvette with a 1:42.678 from Charlie Eastwood that would prove to be almost two tenths clear of the field. Garage 59’s #58 McLaren ended up second in the tight session. The #27 Aston Martin completed the top three, and the #21 Vista AF Corse Ferrari made it four brands in the top four.
It was a mostly clean session, with just one notable FCY for contact between Darren Leung in the #32 WRT BMW and the #61 Mercedes-AMG of Rui Andrade at Turn 14, for which Andrade was reprimanded.
Antares Au also had an off in the #10 Garage 59 McLaren after a mistake under braking, but recovered and continued.
Free Practice 2 is set to get underway at 15:15 local time.
Image courtesy of DPPI