WEC / 6H Imola – H+4: Rain rearranges the card, Toyota leads ahead of Porsche

The arrival of rain provided two different strategies ahead of the 6 Hours of Imola race.

The race experienced another discontinuity under Full Course Yellow after 3h26′, following the departure of the No. 11 Isotta Fraschini of Carl Bennett in the Alta Variant.

At the restart, Nyck de Vries (No. 7 Toyota) was quicker than Miguel Molina and passed the No. 50 Ferrari driver for second place. Shortly after, Callum Ilott (Porsche 963 n°12 – Hertz Team JOTA) made a mistake and stopped in the gravel trap at Rivazza while the Peugeot n°94 saw his left front tire burst, damaging the bodywork.

All of these incidents lead to the deployment of the regular safety car, then the safety car, as the rain seems to get heavier. At the moment, it is Nyck de Vries and Toyota who are leading.

At the restart, on a hard track, Miguel Molina regained the advantage over the struggling de Vries. That’s when the strategies were taken, where the three Ferraris decided to stay on the light tires while the car number 7 type Toyota or two type Porsche 963 – Porsche Penske especially when they returned to the pits to change wet tires.

At the end of the 4th hour, Ferrari #50 of Miguel Molina leads the race ahead of #51 of James Calado and #83 – AF Corse of Robert Shwartzman. Except that the three Italian cars finally decided to return to the pit lane.

Which leaves the #7 Toyota of Kamui Kobayashi in the lead, 7″ ahead of the #6 Porsche of Kévin Estre and 24″ ahead of the #8 Toyota of Brendon Hartley. Followed by the No. 20 BMW M Hybrid V8 – BMW M Team WRT of Sheldon van der Linde and the second No. 5 Porsche – Matt Campbell’s Porsche Penske. The Ferraris are in 6th, 7th and 8th places, more than a minute behind.

In LMGT3, Manthey Pure Rxcing remains in the lead with the #92 Porsche 911 GT3 R of Joel Sturm ahead of the #46 and #31 BMW M4 GT3 duo of Maxime Martin and Augusto Farfus.

The position is HERE