– The Tifosi had to settle for second place: Sebastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley, and Ryo Hirakawa secured the first victory for the Toyota TR010 Hybrid at the car’s debut under this name with its completely new look. The Ferrari #51 (Pier Guidi/Calado/Giovinazzi; 2nd) gradually fell back in a long duel, primarily due to pit stops. (Results)
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Initially, Toyota suffered a setback in front of 92,175 spectators, as Brendon Hartley was almost predictably relegated to third place at the start when Miguel Molina in the Ferrari #50 (Fuoco/Molina/Nielsen; 6th) took over second place, thus establishing a double lead. That was the peak of Ferrari’s emotions for the day.
Already at the first stop, it became clear that Toyota had a slight advantage over Ferrari in the pits, as Hartley moved back into second position. From that point on, the #50 fell back because, unlike the #51, it had started on soft tires, for which it was still too hot. At the second stop, the Toyota then also overtook the Ferrari #51 to take the lead.
Pit Stops Make the Difference
There were two safety car periods in the race, both in the first half of the race and immediately after a pit stop window. After 60 minutes, the ASP-Lexus #87 (Umbrarescu/Schmid/Lopez; DNF) retired. In the third hour, Hypercar rookie Nick Cassidy parked the Peugeot #93 (di Resta/Vandoorne/Cassidy; 16th) in the gravel trap of the Tamburello chicane.
Even with these neutralizations, the duel for victory between the Toyota #8 and the Ferrari #51 continued. Both cars performed at the same level, leading to a spectacular chase after the second restart. However, Toyota was always a bit faster in the pits, thus extending its lead.
The penultimate pit stop brought the preliminary decision: The Toyota #7 (Conway/Kobayashi/de Vries; 3rd) also overtook the Ferrari #51, thus providing the #8 with an even larger cushion. At the last stop, the #7 then needed new tires and fell back to third place.
An hour and a half before the end, there was a brief rain shower, but it wasn’t enough to even consider rain tires. It was a glancing blow from a larger cell that mostly passed to the south. An even larger cell with torrential rain missed Imola to the north.
The Toyota #7 had to fight its way forward from sixth on the grid. It received significant help when both the Ferrari #50 and the Cadillac #12 (Stevens/Nato; 13th), which were fighting for podium places at the start, were given a drive-through penalty for not sufficiently reducing their speed under a yellow flag.
It was particularly bitter in both cases that the penalty had to be served immediately after the last restart. This threw both cars to the back of the Hypercar field. Thus, at the last restart, the Alpine #35 (da Costa/Milesi/Habsburg; 4th) found itself in third place shortly after the restart, but was overtaken by the Toyota #7 at the next pit stop.
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BMW seemed to be on course for fifth and sixth places, but the #15 (Magnussen/Marciello; 7th) still fell victim to the forward momentum of the Ferrari #50. The BMW #20 (Frijns/Rast; 5th) was only 1.1 seconds behind the fourth-placed Alpine.
The Cadillac #38 (Bamber/Bourdais; 8th) salvaged a few points for General Motors on a day when so much more would have been possible with the other car. The points positions were completed by the Aston Martin #007 (Tincknell/Gamble; 9th) and the AF-Corse-Ferrari #83 (Ye/Kubica/Hanson; 10th), which never had the pace of the factory cars throughout the race and gradually fell back.
Leaving without points were the Alpine #36 (Makowiecki/Gounon/Martins; 11th), which had to serve a drive-through penalty for speeding under VSC, the Peugeot #94 (Duval/Jakobsen/Pourchaire; 12th), which couldn’t come close to its qualifying pace in the race, and the Aston Martin #009 (Riberas/Sörensen; 13th).
For Genesis, it was the moment of truth: After 25,000 test kilometers, the GMR-001 completed its first race. While Daniel Juncadella brought the Genesis #19 (Jaminet/Chatin/Juncadella; 29th) into the pits for a 20-lap repair stop after just fifteen minutes due to a defective sensor, the #17 (Lotterer/Derani/Jaubert; 15th) drove through without problems – with a decent pace.
LMGT3 Drama for McLaren
The Garage-59-McLaren #10 (Au/Fleming/Kirchhöfer; 13th LMGT3) actually seemed to be on course for victory, but 33 minutes before the end, there was a major drama: The McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo slowed down, performed several power cycles, and ultimately had to come into the pits for 15 laps.
Thus, the WRT-BMW #69 (McIntosh/Thompson/Harper; 1st LMGT3) inherited the class victory, followed by the TF-Sport-Corvette #33 (McDonald/Edgar/Catsburg; 2nd LMGT3) and the Manthey-Porsche #92 (Shahin/Pera/Lietz; 3rd LMGT3).
Former Formula 1 driver Logan Sargeant finished seventh in class on his WEC debut in the Proton-Ford #88 (Gattuso/Levorato/Sargeant). The Ford Mustang even led the class for a while because it had benefited from the VSC during the first yellow flag period.
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The second round of the WEC will take place from May 7th to 9th in Spa-Francorchamps.
