6 Heures d’Imola – H+4: Rain slowly invites itself to the party
After four hours of racing, Ferrari and Toyota were battling for the lead. Then came the rain. This trapped several drivers, even under the safety car regime.
Between the second and fourth hour of the race, the show was happening more in the sky than on the track. With their eyes glued to the screens, the engineers were tracking the different rain threats. And to the naked eye, the increasingly dark color of the sky confirmed the first indications from the radars.
But before the drops fell, the two Ferraris were battling for the lead. A battle that turned in favour of number 51. “We had a very good start. We have a great pace and we must not make any mistakes,” noted Antonio Giovinazzi, driver of #51, to WEC TV.
73,000 spectators
A little further, the Ford Mustang #88 from Proton Competition fell to pieces. The GT3 lost its diffuser, which forced it to return to the pits and be immobilized for a good ten laps. In the same category, three cars were fighting for the lead: the 92 from Manthey Racing, the #46 from Team WRT, and the Ferrari #55 from AF Corse. The Porsche dominated the discussions at the end of the 4-hour race. « My stint went well. I was feeling pretty good. We’re still in the fight for the podium »,” analyzed Valentino Rossi in front of his MotoGP rider, Marco Bezzecchi.
In front of the 73,000 spectators present in the stands of Imola, the Isotta Fraschini continued its poor performance. In the chicane of the track, it hit the wall, trapped by the arrival of a few drops of rain. This situation caused a Full Course Yellow.
Read also: The 6 Hours of Imola after two hours of racing
At the restart, Nyck de Vries, behind the wheel of Toyota number 7, managed to take the advantage over Ferrari #50, after having been glued to its rear wing for many laps. But the Dutch driver was under penalty for overtaking under virtual safety car conditions, a little later, during the off-track excursion of Porsche #12 and the tire blowout of Peugeot #94.
The safety car then made its appearance, at the moment when the rain arrived. The drivers had a lot of trouble controlling their cars, even under safety car conditions. Despite the situation, no man put on the appropriate tires since the rain was not supposed to last. Several cars went off the track. The GT3s were even driving faster than the Hypercars.
In difficult conditions, the Toyota number 7 was in trouble, allowing Ferrari to retake the lead of the race. Several prototypes therefore went to change tires due to the delicate conditions. The Ferraris, however, did not change their mounts.
