The World Endurance Championship is back in Italy for the second race of the 2025 season amidst an incredibly competitive field. Will Ferrari redeem themselves after last year’s strategy blunder? And just who will take victory in the closest LMGT3 field yet? It’s all to play for as Le Mans looms in the background, just under two months away.

As the safety car pulled in, the rain began to fall as Alessandro Pier Guidi led the field back to green. The #51 Ferrari led from Kevin Estre’s #6 Porsche as Kamui Kobayashi jumped past the #15 BMW to put his #7 Toyota into third. Dries Vanthoor now at the wheel of the #15 found himself under pressure from the #83 Ferrari of Robert Kubica and BMW teammate Sheldon Van Der Linde in the #20.

Thanks to the safety car, the race had been all but reset to the start. From now, with everyone on fresh tyres and on the same fuel strategy till the end it was effectively a two hour sprint race, the only question being how would the soft tyres last the rest of the way. 

But it soon turned out they wouldn’t last very well. The first warning sign was the #36 Alpine, that had taken a full set of softs, being overtaken by the #50 on old mediums. And then it became apparent that the #51 was not extending the gap but actually being reeled in by the #7 Toyota, #6 Porsche and #15 BMW who were all on mediums. Furthermore, the #83 was dropping back.

Meanwhile in LMGT3 things had completely changed. No longer was the #46 in the lead, now it was the #78 Lexus of Esteban Masson, with the #92 Porsche second, Charlie Eastwood’s #81 Corvette in third and the Racing Spirit of Lemans #10 Aston running fourth. WRT’s #46 was down in fifth.

Then the penultimate pit stops came for the LMGT3 field, with Richard Leitz in the #92 Porsche taking the lead, ahead of Kelvin Van Der Linde’s #46 BMW and the #87 Lexus of Kelvin Van Der Linde. The sister #78 car was fourth courtesy of Fin Gehrsitz.

Then it was the turn of the Hypercars for their penultimate fuel stop. First to pit was the fight for second, with the #6 Porsche, #15 BMW all pitting. The #8 and #51 stayed out an extra lap and #83 also went longer than their rivals.

The #15 had a great stop, and came out ahead of the #83 and both Porsches having not taken tyres. The #51 was also in the same camp, and came out fourth behind the #20 BMW as the hour ticked over. Up ahead though it was Antonio Fuoco’s #50 and the #8 of Sebastian Buemi who were fighting for the lead despite still being on an alternate strategy to the rest of the field. The battle was awesome, and there was the possibility of a safety car or rain that would send the two cars into real contention.

Buemi then pit the #8 for his last stop, entering a huge pit battle with the #50 but with just two seconds of an advantage held the possible lead as BMW’s #20 now led overall though it’d need to pit before the rest of the field. 

This meant they were the only two cars in contention that did not need a splash and dash stop towards the very end, and could well put them in contention for overall victory, but the two came to blows at Tamburello, the contact sending the #50 across the gravel trap and giving it a puncture. The car’s chances of a good result and all the prior work of Molina and Nielsen was now ruined.

This then turned the race’s attention towards the #51’s gamble of going to the end, and that looked to be incredibly risky given the virtual energy available but could reward them with an overall win. 

In LMGT3 meanwhile Corvette looked on for consecutive victories with the #81 joined by the #33 of Dani Juncadella, with the #95 Mclaren now fourth in the hands of Marino Sato, though they all needed to pit before race end. When they did, the #46 BMW moved up to second, now ahead of both Lexus cars. #78 ahead of #87, as the sister car however ran into the most peculiar problem all day. Augusto Farfus ran into the rear wing while getting out of the #31, damaging the car to the extent they were penalised with a black flag and had to pit again to remove the flailing bodywork. The LMGT3 race for them was all but over.

Meanwhile in Hypercar, BMW were very much alive and kicking. In another twist of strategy, the WRT crew’s fast pit stops meant the #20 of Sheldon Van Der Linde was now the best placed car of those not needing to pit which meant they could stand to take the lead after those ahead had done their fuel splash stops. So in essence, as long as they could close the gaps to the leaders enough to overtake them during the stops, BMW potentially stood to win their first ever World Endurance Championship race. And as the cars ahead came in for their final stops it looked increasingly likely.

Roughly ten seconds behind them was the #36 Alpine and thanks to another quick stop the #15 BMW who made it out of the pits ahead of the twoToyotas, #8 ahead of #7. That was now the net top five after the #51, #6, #93 and #83 made their final stops.  

But then, such was the gap the #51 held it retained the lead by roughly twenty seconds and now BMW’s potential victory looked to be over save a fuel miscalculation on the Scuderia’s part, though the #20 was still running second with the #36 Alpine third, and the #83 came out fourth overall after its stop.

And that’s how it would stay in Hypercar, with Ferrari winning their second race in a row with the #51 crew. BMW took their second ever podium in the series, the first for the #20 car as Alpine returned to the podium for the first time since Fuji last year. LMGT3 was a much closer affair, with the #92 of Richard Leitz battling against a charging Kelvin Van Der Linde in a truly grandstand finish. But the #92 would hold on (with a little help from the #93 Peugeot splitting the two up in the second sector on the penultimate lap) but ended up winning by less than a second.

Phew. That was an absolute belter of a race, and with Spa just three weeks away there’s only more of this round the corner. I’ll see you for the ELMS race at Paul Ricard in two weeks before that, but I just can’t help but feel like a kid in a candy shop watching these Hypercars create racing like this.

– Thomas

thumbnail credit – Seitooo, CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0, via Wikimedia Commons