MOTORSPORT – Ferrari AF Corse’s #51 crew of Antonio Giovinazzi, Alessandro Pier Guidi, and James Calado powered their 499P Hypercar to overall pole position yesterday for the Six Hours of Imola – today’s season-opening round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship (WEC).
The Giovinazzi-Pier Guidi-Calado triumvirate are the WEC’s reigning Hypercar drivers’ world champions, and they showed their quality by grabbing the leading grid spot in front of their home fans at Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Italy.
They clocked a fastest lap of one minute 30.127 seconds to top the timesheet in the closest-ever Hyperpole shootout in Hypercar history.
They pipped Toyota Racing’s trio of Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Ryo Hirakawa, who were just 0.011 seconds behind in their #8 TR010 Hybrid.
“That was a lot more difficult than last year!” Giovinazzi was quoted as saying on fiawec.com of his fourth career pole in the WEC.
“After seeing Toyota run on the medium tyres in the first part of qualifying, we knew they would be a threat in Hyperpole, and with the hotter temperatures compared to last year, our car wasn’t so easy to drive.
“I was on an even quicker lap earlier in the session until I made a mistake, so I’m really happy that in the end I was able to do enough because we know how important track position is here, but it was certainly intense and it will make for a fun race to watch tomorrow, that’s for sure!”
Ferrari AF Corse’s #50 crew of Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina, and Nicklas Nielsen followed on the Hyperpole classification 0.040s from their teammates in their 499P Hypercar – putting two cars in the leading three grid places for the defending Hyperpcar manufacturers’ world champions.
Peugeot TotalEnergies’ #94 9X8 Hypercar driven by Loic Duval, Malthe Jakobsen, and Theo Pourchaire joined them on row two after going 0.073s slower in the session, which featured a heated battle between the top 10 in class from qualifying.
Meanwhile, in the WEC’s lower-tier LMGT3 category, the #10 McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo of Garage 59, driven by Antares Au, Thomas Fleming, and Marvin Kirchhofer, grabbed pole in class with a best lap time of 1:41.181 in their Hyperpole session.
They beat out Akkodis ASP Team’s #78 crew of Tom van Rompuy, Hadrien David, and Esteban Masson in their Lexus RC F LMGT3 contender by 0.226s.
Set to start from the second row amongst LMGT3 runners are Akkodis’ #87 trio of Petru Umbrarescu, Clemens Schmid, and Jose Maria Lopez, who were 0.364s off the pace in their Lexus, and the #69 BMW M4 LMGT3 Evo of Team WRT, driven by Anthony McIntosh, Parker Thompson, and Daniel Harper, who finished 0.410s behind the leaders.
The stage is now set for today’s Six Hours of Imola, scheduled to flag off at 2pm, Bahrain time.
This year’s star-studded WEC field features 17 contenders in the premier Hypercar category and 18 in the LMGT3.
They represent no fewer than 14 of the world’s biggest automotive marques including Alpine, Aston Martin, BMW, Cadillac, Corvette, Ferrari, Ford, Genesis, Lexus, McLaren, Mercedes-AMG, Peugeot, Porsche, and Toyota.
The WEC’s 2026 campaign is composed of eight rounds, with the season-finale, the Bapco Energies 8 Hours of Bahrain, scheduled for November 6 and 7 at Bahrain International Circuit in Sakhir.
patrick@gdnmedia.bh
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