Porsche’s Matt Campbell led at just over halfway in the FIA World Endurance Championship’s 6 Hours of Imola, after starting 10th.
With overtaking hard to come by at Imola, good strategy is needed to move up through the field. Porsche have done just that, strategising the car into the lead of the race, despite not having the pace to challenge the superior Ferraris on track.
Campbell took the lead just recently at the last round of pitstops, through minimal tyre changes and fuel saving to move up through the field.
The former leading Ferrari, the #51, with Antonio Giovinazzi at the wheel, is second, three seconds off Campbell.
The #51 has led almost every lap of the race after starting from pole with James Calado at the wheel. Calado handed over to Giovinazzi with two hours gone. However, they lost the lead in the stops to Campbell and Porsche, and are now challenging them to get that back.
Behind two leading pair is the #20 BMW of Robin Frijns, around eight seconds off Campbell in the Porsche. Once again strategy has enabled them to move up through the field, initially with Rene Rast at the wheel. The car is carrying some damage after Rast made contact with Mike Conway in the #7 Toyota at Variante Alta, with Conway later criticising the German for the incident.
The #7 Toyota is behind Frijns, now with Nyck de Vries at the wheel. Conway started the car from fourth and they’ve stayed around that position all race.
Raffaele Marciello in the #15 BMW is fifth behind Molina. Kevin Magnussen started the car from third, and he pulled away from the cars behind him early on. However, they lost out to Alpine and Ferrari at the recent pitstops, dropping them down to fifth.
The #36 Alpine of Jules Gounon is sixth. In the hands of Fred Makowiecki, the car started sixth and lost a position at the start to Paul Di Resta in the #93 Peugeot. However, Alpine used strategy to pass their fellow French manufacturer in the first half of the race, and has since retained sixth amidst a mix of strategies at Imola regarding tyres and fuel.
Finally, in seventh and eighth are the other two Ferraris, the #83 yellow satellite car, with Robert Kubica now at the wheel after taking over from Yifei Ye. Miguel Molina is eighth in the #50 car, which started last after exceeding track limits in qualifying.
Rossi leads home race for WRT in LMGT3
At the halfway point, Valentino Rossi led for the #46 WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo at 10 seconds ahead of Petru Umbrarescu’s #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus RC F LMGT3.
Simon Mann’s #21 Ferrari 296 LMGT3 was third ahead of Timur Boguslavskiy’s #31 WRT BMW. Ben Tuck rounded the top-five in the #77 Proton Ford Mustang LMGT3.
Into the second racing hour, Stefano Gattuso (#88 Proton Ford) found himself in further woes when Thomas Flohr (#54 AF Corse Ferrari 296 LMGT3) aggressively fended his position up the hill after Turn 13.
The Ferrari damaged the right-front of the Mustang in their contact thus Flohr served 10 seconds at his next pit stop and the Mustang pitted for repairs soon after.
Yasser Shahin’s #31 WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo pressured Ian James of the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage LMGT3 Evo for sixth position in tense means.
Shahin attempted an unsuccessful move on the inside into the chicane and returned the position as race control instructed.
Their battle ended poorly for James after Shahin punted him at the penultimate corner, instigating the first safety car period with 4-hours and 27-minutes remaining.
On the restart, Ahmad Al Harthy retained his lead in the 46 WRT BMW which started on pole position as at the next pit stop, the pole-man Valentino Rossi took over the wheel.
The race entered the third hour and, after the pit stop cycle, Clemens Schmid led the race for the #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus.
WRT’s #31 BMW started in 12th position and ran second with Rossi behind, although that quickly changed when Rossi overtook Boguslavskiy.
With Rossi in the eventual lead when the #87 pitted, Boguslavskiy quickly occupied himself with defending Mann’s #21 AF Corse Ferrari having raced door-to-door up towards Turn 9.
