The WEC season restarts with the Imola tests
The well-known vicissitudes of the war in the Middle East have revolutionized the 2026 WEC championship calendar, which will see its first seasonal race at the 6 Hours of Imola scheduled for next Sunday, April 19. The cancellation of the first seasonal round in Qatar also had the side effect of postponing the pre-season WEC tests, better known as the “prologue”, which took place today April 14 on the Italian track.
The program included 2 sessions: morning from 9:00 to 12:30 and afternoon from 14:00 to 18:30. The weather was not particularly kind with a wet track in the morning due to overnight rain that gradually dried during the morning session held under a cloudy sky but at least without rain. Threatening weather but dry track also for much of the afternoon, with rain returning to slightly wet the asphalt in the last available hour.
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Ferrari immediately competitive, rivals seem far behind
Although test times should always be taken with caution due to many unknowns such as fuel on board, different work programs, etc., Ferrari, which starts to defend the world drivers’ and constructors’ titles won in 2025, was immediately consistently the fastest Hypercar on track. All three 499Ps, in fact, both the official #50 and #51 and the yellow 83 AF Corse, long and quite easily occupied the top three positions in the rankings of the two test sessions of the day. The times recorded by Maranello’s Hypercars were as fast as they were consistent and none of the rivals managed to get close. Particularly noteworthy was the consistently excellent performance of #83, which Robert Kubica managed to place between the two official reds both in the morning and in the afternoon. Also on the mileage front, and thus reliability, the Ferraris showed no concerns, covering a total of 559 laps with the three cars. Certainly these tests are a good omen for Maranello’s 499Ps, ahead of the season debut in a few days on this same track.
Perhaps more was expected from Toyota and Cadillac. The Japanese manufacturer brought to the track its deeply renewed TR010 which showed remarkable reliability and consistency but did not particularly impress in lap times, a track where it had also won a couple of years ago in wet conditions like these tests. Similar judgment for Cadillac which, along with the already exited Porsche, had somehow contested the titles with Ferrari last season. The traditional speed of the Hertz Jota team’s Hypercar was not much seen here, staying behind the Ferraris in the morning, and in the afternoon they failed to improve their times, sliding down several positions in the ranking.
More convincing instead were Alpine and BMW, which always remained in the first half of the ranking, except for an engine problem in the morning on Magnussen’s #15 that stopped him prematurely. Reliability still seems to be a tricky problem for the Bavarian cars while Alpine, in their last year in the championship before their already announced withdrawal from the category, evidently want to try to achieve some more satisfaction after their first and so far only victory at Fuji last season. Peugeot continues not to shine, always staying behind the outgoing French cousins Alpine, with the 9×8 renewed in livery but without major developments in the car that is facing its fourth full season in the WEC championship.
Genesis was predictably the tail-ender in the two test sessions. For the Korean manufacturer, however, this is a completely acceptable result considering that the GMR-001s are making their absolute debut in the championship. The important thing for Genesis was to put together as many laps as possible after the already fruitful solo private test sessions and at least on the mileage front the mission can be said to be accomplished. The balance was more bitter for the Aston Martin Valkyrie, which in the morning immediately lost the use of #009 that ended up in the wall after an off-track excursion without consequences for Sorensen. Completing the program was thus only #007 which still managed to post mid-field times. For a non-hybrid car that debuted a year ago, this is still a good result at least in performance terms.
Common technical themes on the eve of the first race of the championship
Being effectively the only collective on-track test day before the race, all teams took advantage of the available time from the first minute, as there were many technical themes to verify on the field for the teams. First of all, it must be remembered that all LMH and LMDH hypercars had to undergo a new homologation of their aerodynamics according to the regulations. This necessity also applied to those who, like Ferrari for example, had not spent any tokens on aerodynamic development of the car. The reason was the choice by WEC and IMSA to use the IMSA Windshear wind tunnel in North Carolina, since the Sauber tunnel in Switzerland was no longer available. This new homologation process led to inevitable small modifications to the aerodynamic setup of the Hypercars, whose on-track verification of consistency with simulation data was extremely valuable. Then there were the new Michelin slick tires made with 50% sustainable materials (renewed or recycled) to test, and also, taking advantage of the wet track, the rain tires. These are the general technical themes, but the fact remains that many cars, Toyota first and foremost, presented heavily revised and updated cars compared to the previous season, not to mention the newcomers from Genesis debuting in the championship this season. Below is the summary and times of their test sessions of the day.
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Ferrari immediately a clean sweep in the morning session
The morning session started with a wet track and temperature just above 15°. However, there was no rain, which allowed all drivers, who had started running on rain tires, to improve their times as the track dried, managing to switch to slick tires after about an hour of testing. In the morning, apart from some inevitable yellow flags, the only notable incident was the accident that occurred at 11:00 to Marco Sorensen on the Aston Martin Valkyrie #009 exiting the Tamburello chicane. The Danish driver did not suffer serious consequences, although he was taken to the medical center, but his car was heavily damaged and had to stop his test session. This caused a red flag for about 20 minutes. Problems also for Magnussen who with his BMW #15 covered only 26 laps due to an engine problem that later caused its replacement. All Hypercars were engaged in covering the maximum number of laps on track without taking excessive risks. The brand-new Toyota TR010s, which had started the session leading on the wet track, slipped back in the timing rankings, but still managed to cover the most laps of the group with 101 laps with #8 and 98 laps with #7. At least the car showed no reliability problems.
Occupying steadily the top three positions in the timing rankings were the three Ferrari 499Ps, with #51 leading over #83 and #50. Obviously, all nine drivers of the cars took turns at the wheel, with Giovinazzi snatching the provisional best time with hard tires from #83 right at the end of the morning session. Excellent result for Ferrari also in terms of reliability considering the number of laps completed. It is worth noting that the second-best time in the morning was set by Robert Kubica, who maintained the best time in the second sector, leaving Giovinazzi the lead in T1 and T3.
Ferrari monologue also in the afternoon session
The afternoon session started at 14:00 with a still dry track, temperature of 18° but cloudy and threatening rain. Giovinazzi immediately put his Ferrari 499P #51 back on track and further improved his best lap lowering it to 1:31.375, still on hard tires but after a few minutes the provisional lead passed to his teammate Antonio Fuoco on #50 who lowered it to 1:31.177. Rivals seemed heavily delayed and all quite grouped about a second behind the red 499Ps. After 30 minutes the yellow Ferrari #83 AF Corse with Kubica at the wheel entered the track and rose to second provisional position at the end of the first hour of the afternoon session. From that moment on, times stopped improving due to some raindrops that returned to moisten the asphalt. The Hypercars continued to rack up laps until the end of the session, interrupted for a few minutes in total by a couple of red flags. Also in the afternoon session, the Ferraris continued to run on hard tires, also imitated by the BMW #20 of Rast which sported the new aerodynamics characterized by the new nose with a downsized “double kidney”.
Afternoon session not particularly brilliant for Cadillac, which lost positions compared to the morning timing rankings failing to improve, as well as for Toyota which continued to rack up kilometers but without managing to climb to the top of the timing rankings. The last hour of testing took place under light rain that definitively ended hopes of improving the times set at the beginning of the session.
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