The 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship got its competitive season underway at Imola on Friday, with free practice for the 6 Hours of Imola split across two 90-minute sessions on a warm spring afternoon in Italy.

Hypercar

Ferrari set the early tone in FP1, locking out the top three positions as Robert Kubica led the way in the #83 AF Corse 499P with a 1m31.739s. Antonio Fuoco was just 0.023s behind in the #50 works car, with Antonio Giovinazzi third in the #51, 0.243s off the pace. The best non-Ferrari was the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R of Will Stevens, who posted a 1m32.183s — the pairing running without regular team-mate Alex Lynn, absent due to scheduled neck surgery. The two Peugeot 9X8s came fifth and sixth, with Malthe Jakobsen heading Stoffel Vandoorne, while Sébastien Buemi placed the new-look Toyota TR010 Hybrid seventh on its first proper outing ahead of the two BMWs. Genesis Magma Racing, making its WEC competitive debut, completed the Hypercar field in 15th and 16th.

The picture changed in FP2, with Charles Milesi vaulting the #35 Alpine A424 to the top of the timesheets on a 1m30.898s — some 0.6s quicker than Kubica’s FP1 benchmark — to suggest Alpine could be genuine frontrunners this weekend. Nyck de Vries slotted the #7 Toyota TR010 Hybrid into second on a 1m31.012s, the car having undergone a significant aerodynamic overhaul over the winter. Ferrari wound up third and fourth, the #50 and #51 cars separated by just 0.061s — and from trackside, it looked rather as though the Maranello squad was content to manage its pace rather than show everything it had. The #94 Peugeot of Jakobsen was fifth and Robin Frijns sixth in the #20 BMW. Only 0.984s covered the top 14 in the Hypercar class by the end of FP2 — a sign of how closely matched the field is heading into qualifying.

LMGT3

Charlie Eastwood set the FP1 pace in LMGT3, posting a 1m42.678s in the #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette. Finn Gehrsitz, who has moved from Akkodis ASP to Garage 59 for 2026, was 0.170s adrift in the #58 McLaren, with Mattia Drudi third in the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage on a 1m42.891s. The #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari of Alessio Rovera took fourth, just ahead of the #10 Garage 59 McLaren and the #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin, where young Belgian Kobe Pauwels went quickest of his trio of FIA WEC newcomers. The session was interrupted twice by full-course yellows — first when Antares Au went off at Tamburello in the #10 McLaren, and again when a bollard was displaced at the Variante Alta chicane.

FP2 saw Pauwels go one better, setting a 1m42.081s in the #23 Aston Martin in the closing stages to head the class. French newcomer Hadrien David was just 0.070s behind in the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus, having led the session for much of its duration — David, the 2025 Michelin Le Mans Cup champion, showed strong early pace on his WEC debut. Zacharie Robichon in the sister #27 Aston Martin slotted into third, fractionally ahead of the second Akkodis Lexus of Clemens Schmid. TF Sport’s #33 Corvette of Jonny Edgar was fifth, while the FP1-topping #34 spent the first half of FP2 in the pits with a suspected water pressure issue before Peter Dempsey and Salih Yoluç recovered to sixth. Qualifying takes tomorrow, starting 14.30h.