The FIA World Endurance Championship’s 2026 season was always going to start at Imola — just not quite in the way anyone had planned. The opening round in Qatar was called off amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, leaving the Autodromo Internazionale Enzo e Dino Ferrari to host not only the first race of the year but also the Prologue test that preceded it.

Eight Hypercar manufacturers and a packed LMGT3 grid duly gathered in northern Italy on Tuesday for a full day of running, giving the first meaningful indication of where the competitive order stands heading into Sunday’s six-hour race.

Hypercar: Ferrari on top, but the field is closing

If anyone was hoping for a shake-up at the front, the Prologue offered little encouragement. Ferrari’s trio of 499Ps dominated both sessions, with Antonio Fuoco setting the outright benchmark of 1m31.177s in the #50 early in the afternoon — a time that would stand as the fastest of the day. Robert Kubica followed in the #83 AF Corse entry, 0.126 seconds back, with defending world champion Antonio Giovinazzi third in the #51 factory car. The morning had told a similar story, with Giovinazzi fastest then ahead of Kubica and Nicklas Nielsen.

BMW provided the most encouraging signs among the opposition. Robin Frijns put the #20 M Team WRT Hybrid V8 fourth overall in the afternoon, just half a second off Fuoco’s pace — a narrower gap than the morning had suggested. The #15 sister car had a disrupted start to the day, completing only 25 laps after an engine change, but returned in the afternoon to post over 100 laps and finish eighth, with Kevin Magnussen at the wheel.

Alpine ran consistently throughout, the #36 and #35 A424s occupying fifth and sixth in the afternoon order, separated by just four thousandths of a second. Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA had the #12 entry in fourth in the morning session with Norman Nato at the wheel — Alex Lynn is absent this weekend — but the pair of V-Series.Rs slipped outside the top ten across the day. Toyota’s new TR010 Hybrid kept a low profile, the #8 ending up ninth in the afternoon courtesy of Sébastien Buemi, while the #7 led the way on lap count across both sessions.

The Aston Martin program had a troubled day. Marco Sørensen put the #009 Valkyrie into the barriers two hours into the morning session, and the car missed the afternoon entirely while being rebuilt around a replacement chassis. Harry Tincknell subsequently posted the 12th-fastest time in the afternoon in the repaired car. The #10 entry of Tom Gamble had been inside the top ten in the morning, making the team’s overall day a mixed one.

Genesis Magma Racing, making its first appearance ahead of this weekend’s competitive debut, focused squarely on accumulating laps rather than lap times. The two GMR-001 prototypes completed over 350 laps across the full day, with Mathieu Jaminet’s 1m33.618s the best the newcomer managed — around 2.4 seconds off Ferrari’s pace. For a brand-new program making its WEC race debut on Sunday, the mileage will matter far more than the timing screens right now.

LMGT3: Five manufacturers, a quarter of a second

The LMGT3 field picked up exactly where it left off last season — absurdly close. The morning session’s top five were covered by less than 0.25 seconds, with Alessio Rovera setting the pace in the #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari by just 38 thousandths over Finn Gehrsitz in Garage 59’s McLaren, the team making its WEC debut. Nicky Catsburg was third for TF Sport’s Corvette, Dan Harper fourth for WRT’s BMW, and Maxime Martin fifth for Iron Lynx’s Mercedes-AMG — five manufacturers in a handful of milliseconds.

The afternoon shuffled the order slightly. Mattia Drudi took overall honours for Heart of Racing in the #27 Aston Martin Vantage with a 1m42.698s, just ahead of Rovera, who had led the morning. Thomas Fleming was third in Garage 59’s #10 McLaren, with TF Sport’s pair of Corvettes — the Racing Team Turkey-branded #34 of Charlie Eastwood and the #33 of Jonny Edgar — rounding out the top five. The top 14 remained covered by under a second.

The session was interrupted by a series of incidents at Acque Minerali. José María López spun the #87 Akkodis ASP Lexus into the gravel to bring out a red flag, while Yasser Shahin beached the #92 Porsche shortly after to trigger a full-course yellow. Sean Gelael also brought out a brief caution late on when the #32 WRT BMW encountered an issue at Rivazza 2.

Looking back at last year

Twelve months ago, qualifying at Imola was a straightforward affair for the Tifosi — though not without its drama. Giovinazzi put the #51 on pole by a commanding 0.758 seconds over the #83 Kubica entry, with the #50 of Fuoco absent from the Hyperpole session after lap times were deleted for track limits. Dries Vanthoor qualified the #15 BMW third, ahead of both Toyotas.

In LMGT3, Valentino Rossi claimed his first WEC pole position on home soil, leading the class by over three tenths from the #87 Lexus. The race itself delivered everything the home crowd could have wanted.

Looking ahead

Qualifying takes place on Saturday, with the 6 Hours of Imola getting underway on Sunday. On the strength of the Prologue, Ferrari arrive as favourites — but with BMW closing the gap and Genesis Magma preparing to make its race debut, there is enough intrigue across both classes to make this a compelling curtain-raiser.