Giovinazzi watching Toyota after close qualifying
By the finest of margins, Antonio Giovinazzi managed to score back-to-back Imola pole positions in Hypercar, with the point for pole position meaning that his #51 Ferrari crew starts the season where it spent the majority of 2025: in the lead of the Drivers’ World Championship.
“It was a lot more difficult than last year,” the Italian admitted, having stormed to pole 12 months ago by a margin of 0.758 seconds, larger than the time delay which covered the entire Hyperpole field this year.
“The car was not easy to drive today. Compared to last year, we have around 15 degrees more track temp. I had no news until when I crossed the line in the last lap, and I talked to my engineer, that I found out it was enough to go on pole.
“Because I did a 30.1, and in qualifying they [Antonio Fuoco, #50 Ferrari] did a 30.0, I was not sure that it was good enough. It was a close one but I think it’s what the Tifosi want to see. Good ending, really close, and this will also make the race tomorrow really fun to watch.”
Looking ahead, of all of Ferrari’s rivals it is Toyota that Giovinazzi is monitoring closest heading into tomorrow’s race, with the Italian having been wary of the Japanese marque even before Rio Hirakawa placed the #8 TR010 Hybrid onto the front row of the grid.
“We knew that Toyota, especially when we saw that in quali they were on mediums, could be there in Hyperpole,” he stated.
“I think we have the pace to fight with Toyota. I’m sure the race will be quite intense, but hopefully we can do enough to win.”
With overtaking difficult, and a risk of rain looming over tomorrow’s encounter, Giovinazzi is also aware of the potential pitfalls that could prevent the Prancing Horse from claiming consecutive wins on home turf.
“First of all, we need to see the weather,” he explained. “We’re not sure that it will all be dry.”
“We know how we how important the track position is here in Imola, so to put the car in front now is much better, but we need to stay front. Try to understand when we need to change four tyres, or two tires, so it will be quite intense.”
Hirakawa delivers after “struggling” with new TR010 Hybrid
Toyota Racing’s Ryo Hirakawa delivered the surprise of Hyperpole, with the 32-year-old briefly placing his #8 TR010 Hybrid onto provisional pole position, before having to settle for second on the grid.
“I wasn’t really expecting that, because I was really struggling with the car,” he said, before highlighting the new-for-2026 Michelin tyres as a particular point of difficulty.
Since Toyota doesn’t compete in the IMSA Sportscar Championship, this weekend is the TR010 Hybrid’s first competitive outing on the updated rubber.
“We had a quite big step into Q1,” he explained. “Through the weekend, we were improving the car, understanding the tyres, and finally I had a good lap in Hyperpole.”
Hirakawa’s lap is all the more impressive when you consider that he utilised the medium compound in qualifying, before being forced by regulations to switch to the soft tyre for Hyperpole.
The choice to run on the medium tyre in qualifying was a practical one, with the more durable rubber giving the Japanese driver more attempts at progressing to Hyperpole.
“I was struggling with the car and the tyres, so with the medium I had the opportunity for more laps,” he explained.
“[Switching compounds] was challenging of course, but that was the only choice I had.”
Jakobsen “could see the carrot” in tight shootout
Malthe Jakobsen turned heads for Peugeot in Hyperpole today, putting the #94 fourth on the grid with a time just a fraction off pole.
The Dane was, of course, pleased he stuck the car in the second row, but felt pole was a possibility.
“In terms of position, it’s not my best qualifying, but in terms of gaps, it’s the best,” he said to DSC. “I’m frustrated because it was so close, I could see the carrot. You can never be perfect, but it wasn’t a bad lap. I did the best I could; I’m happy with the job I did. But there’s more improvements to be made.
“But for this weekend, where it’s so hard to overtake, you want a good Saturday. The weather will play a big factor, tyre degradation could be a key point. As long as we focus on ourselves, we can hopefully stay up front.”
Grip came “too late” for Kubica
Both factory Ferrari 499Ps showed plenty of speed in Hyperpole, but it was a different story for the privately-entered #83 car in the shootout. Robert Kubica could only manage eighth on the grid, with a 1:30.508.
Unsurprisingly, he was left scratching his head, feeling there was more pace in the car.
“It’s not where we expected to be,” he said to DSC. “The quali lap 10 minutes earlier was good enough to be battling on the first row. For whatever reason, I didn’t have the same front grip and suffered. It came late, and by then the damage was done. I recovered a bit of lap time, but it was just too late. I felt on my first push lap that the tyres weren’t ready, even though the numbers I had in the car were fine.
“Track position is so important; starting where we are isn’t the easiest task. Maybe the weather can help us.”
Milesi not surprised by Alpine performance
Alpine’s Charles Milesi put the #35 A424 P7 on the grid for tomorrow’s race, which on the face of it looked like a disappointment after the team topped the second practice session yesterday. But after Hyperpole, Milesi admitted that the team expected to be slightly off the pace set by the cars that qualified ahead.
“We could see it coming from what we saw in FP2 and FP3, Ferrari, Toyota and Cadillac had something in the pocket and were playing,” he explained. “We were waiting to see if they used it, and they did. We were expecting to be where we ended up.
“I think tomorrow we’ll be in the same sort of positions. Ferrari and Toyota will be strong, even the BMWs looked good in FP2. We are in a good group for the start. It’ll be down to strategy, track position, and then we will see if it rains. The main goal is to score points with both cars.”
Genesis “close to perfect” ahead of debut race
Genesis Magma Racing has quietly gone about its business this week in Imola, running metronomically, improving the car’s set-up for the track and gathering data for the season to come. If there are no surprises in the race, then everyone can go home safe in the knowledge that they passed the new team audition with flying colours.
Mathieu Jaminet, the faster of the two Genesis drivers in Qualifying, is upbeat ahead of Sunday’s race as a result.
“This week has been close to perfect,” he said. “The car is reliable, we’ve had good run plans and achieved pretty much every single lap we wanted to. For a newcomer, if you look back to 2023, we achieved the most laps with two cars. We did an amazing job on prep. We are off on pace, but it’s not crazy.
“We went into Qualifying with the mindset of going flat out. I left nothing on the table, I was pushing, and I’m happy with the result. Then, for the race, the first target is to finish; six hours in a race is different to testing. We have to go with the flow, stay out of trouble, don’t make stupid mistakes, and you never know. Pushing for points is perhaps a step too far, but if we stay clean and fight cars in front for P12, P14, it would be great.”
Fleming “left nothing on the table” for LMGT3 pole
Thomas Fleming put the #10 Garage 59 McLaren LMGT3 Evo on pole this afternoon in the first competitive session on the 2026 calendar. Fleming made his first WEC Hyperpole session a memorable one, securing a place at the front for the Garage 59 team on its WEC debut.
The #10 McLaren had some mixed results coming into qualifying, but stepped up when it counted, aided by a great performance from Bronze driver Antares Au.
“Free practice was a bit of up and down throughout, versus the other cars, and Antares [Au] put a really good lap in to get into hyperpole,” he explained.
“We sort of just thought, right, well, let’s see what we can do here. Then pulled the pin, so to speak. And yeah, the car felt really, really good. Just gave everything I could, left nothing on the table today.”
Fleming has had some great results with Garage 59 in the past, namely three Gold class wins in the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup in 2025, and a very recent Gold win at Paul Ricard in the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup.
“To be on pole for my first race is pretty surreal, to say the least. Just extremely grateful for the work that McLaren and Garage 59 have done to get to this point.”
Mountain to climb for Heart of Racing in LMGT3
Heart of Racing’s team principal/driver Ian James was left disappointed in the team’s performance in LMGT3. He felt at least one of its Vantages should have made the top 10, but admitted that he wasn’t operating at 100 per cent in the session, which ultimately led to his struggle for a quick enough lap.
“To be honest, we should have got at least one car through. I haven’t been feeling too well and have made mistakes. I should have got through; I went off on my fastest lap. The car was quick enough, but the driver wasn’t,” he explained.
“The ambient temperature coming up isn’t the best for the Vantage, but the car here is pretty good. It’s going to be hard for us; it’s hard to overtake, but it’s hard to avoid mistakes. We can split the strategy now that we have two cars and try different options.”
James’ #27 Aston Martin will line up 13th tomorrow, whilst the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR LMGT3 will start from P15.
This is a departure from Aston Martin’s pace over the course of the weekend so far, in which it finished each practice session in a very good place and even set the fastest lap in FP2 on Friday while the field was running qualifying simulations.
Series newcomer Gray Newell reflected on this result in the post-qualifying media session, commenting that he feels like he is in a good place with the car at this point, finding comparable pace to the other Heart of Racing #27 car in the session.
“The car felt quite good. I was kind of expecting us to be closer, but clearly, everybody else found something that we didn’t. So that’s a little bit disappointing,” he said. “I was pretty happy with the way that I drove. I’m happy to move so close to [the other car] off the bat, and hopefully I can manage to continue that into the race.
“We were quite a bit off the times at points; some cars have quite a bit more straight-line speed than we do.”
David “was not expecting” front row start on LMGT3 debut
Reigning Michelin Le Mans Cup LMP3 champion Hadrien David has made a successful start to his FIA WEC career, with the Frenchman qualifying second in LMGT3 aboard the #78 Akkodis ASP Team Lexus RC F LMGT3.
“I was not expecting that one,” he confessed to DSC. “The car has been quite hard since we came here in the Prologue, and I think Akkodis did a great step. We went in the right direction, and I think the heat helped us as well to switch on the tyres.”
As one of the more difficult circuits to overtake on the calendar, qualifying at Imola is more important than at the majority of the other venues. Starting from the front row, therefore, puts the #78 Lexus in a strong position to seek a top result.
“We know it’s really hard to overtake here, and with the heat and the tyre degradation, it will be even harder,” David said.
“We should have a clean track with only one car ahead, and we will try to attack him as early as possible to have clean air. If that’s not possible, we will focus on saving fuel and tyres to have the cleanest race possible.”
Yoluç upbeat despite disappointing qualifying
Salih Yoluç in the #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette had a tough Hyperpole session after the team ran well in Friday’s practice sessions and FP3 this morning, never out of the top six cars in a very close LMGT3 field.
Peter Dempsey’s best time in qualifying was good enough for P1 heading into Hyperpole, 0.673 seconds in front of the #69 Team WRT BMW. Unfortunately, the Turkish driver could not carry that momentum into his stint in the car after he brought out red flags during his final flying lap.
The #34 Corvette will start tomorrow’s race from 10th position after having its logged lap time deleted.
“Disappointing.It was quite different from where I wanted to be,” Yoluç remarked.
The Turk found the car handled differently from previous sessions, citing some issues with the rear of the Corvette. Despite this, Yoluc appeared to have a positive attitude towards what they will be capable of in tomorrow’s race.
“I don’t know what changed,” he said in the Mixed Zone. “We will need to investigate where the capacity of the car is worse.
“Our car is very good in the wet, so we will benefit from some possible cooler temperatures tomorrow. I think we will be good.”
Albrecht wins Legends of Le Mans opener
Christian Albrecht dominated the maiden race of the new Legends of Le Mans series, leading all 25 laps of the 40-minute affair aboard his #008 Lola Aston Martin DBR1/2.
The German pulled out a 26.331-second margin over Shaun Lynn, who finished second in the #4 Peugeot 908 HDI FAP.
Third overall, and winning LMP2, was François Perrodo in the #83 Porsche RS Spyder. The JMB Classic driver claimed class honours by 23 seconds over Evegeny Kireev’s #46 ORECA 05, with the pair separated by Stuart Wiltshire and Marcel Aebi’s LMP1 machines, as well as Mathieu Lahaye, who is running as an invitational runner in the #21 OAK Pescarolo 01.
LMGTE honours went to the #25 Aston Martin Vantage AMR of Franz Wunderlich, in 12th overall.
The second Legends of Le Mans encounter will be held at 8:40 CEST tomorrow.
Images courtesy of Ferrari Hypercar and Andrew Lofthouse