{"id":1445,"date":"2026-04-18T13:49:07","date_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:49:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/?p=1445"},"modified":"2026-04-18T13:49:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-18T13:49:08","slug":"2026-6-hours-of-imola-hypercar-qualifying-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/2026-6-hours-of-imola-hypercar-qualifying-report\/","title":{"rendered":"2026 6 Hours of Imola &#8211; Hypercar Qualifying Report"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">After Toyota fought them all the way, Ferrari have taken back to back pole positions in Italy with the #51 of Antonio Giovinazzi setting the quickest time in qualifying of 1.30.127, just 11 thousandths of a second ahead of Ryo Hirakawa&#8217;s #8 Toyota who split the works cars. Antonio Fuoco was third in the #50 continuing what&#8217;s been a strong weekend from the Scuderia on all fronts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The opening 12 minute session saw a benchmark time by the Alpine duo, as after setting the quickest time in FP2 the french marque opened the first competitive running with a 1.36.325 from Joules Gounon in the #36, with Charles Milesi&#8217;s #35 0.780sec slower, with Norman Nato&#8217;s #12 Cadillac slotting in just 0.033 behind the top two. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Malthe Jakobsen was the first driver to displace Gounon at the top of the timing sheets, with 1.34.102 in the #94 Peugeot. Toyota, Ferrari and Genesis found themselves well off the pace in the first half of the session, before Jakobsen improved with a 1.30.474 and teammate Stoffel Vandoorne just 0.521 behind. Alpine stayed close to them, before Ferrari soon came alive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Scuderia stormed into a 1-2 with the two factory cars, the #50 of Antonio Fuoco topping the times with a 1.30.199 and Antonio Giovinazzi just 0.142sec behind. They were split shortly afterward by the Peugeot of Jakobsen, just 0.221sec behind Fuoco&#8217;s time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Toyota&#8217;s new TS010 showed good speed with both cars running in the top 10 for most of the session, Nyck De Vries coming within 2 tenths of Fuoco&#8217;s Ferrari and Hirakawa running 7th in the #8, 0.473sec behind. Meanwhile Gounon who&#8217;d set the fastest time early on spoilt his penultimate lap by running wide through the Tamburello chicane, with Charles Milesi now 6th, 0.0332 back from the Ferrari 1-2 of which the latter was now Robert Kubica. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Peugeot pulled both cars into the pits, but they were secured into Hyperpole already with Jakobsen&#8217;s time enough to place him fourth when the chequered flag flew. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Of those eliminated, Gounon&#8217;s final time wasn&#8217;t enough to see him in, placing him 11th for tomorrow&#8217;s race. The best placed of the Aston Martin&#8217;s was Harry Tincknell&#8217;s #007 in 12th, with the #009 of Marco Sorensen 14th thanks to Norman Nato, who split both in his Cadillac to qualifying 13th. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While Jakobsen had secured his #94&#8217;s place in Hyperpole the sister Peugeot of Stoffel Vandoorne was only 15th come the endof the session, ahead of both Genesis cars as expected. The #19 of Mathieu Jaminet was only 1.170sec back from Fuoco&#8217;s best time, with Andre Lotterer last of the Hypercars. It&#8217;s not the end of the world pace-wise though. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Hyperpole<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Alpine&#8217;s remaining #35 set the opening time once again with Charles Milesi, but Ryo Hirakawa was the fastest of the opening laps with a 1.35.424 in the new Toyota, with Antonio Giovinazzi second, 0.451sec back. Jakobsen improved with a 1.30.545 next time around, setting the first of the serious lap times and improved again on his next lap as the #94 went 3 tenths quicker with a 1.30.237. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Ferrari responded by taking a 1-2 with the works cars again, the #51 of Giovinazzi just 0.025 ahead of Fuoco&#8217;s #50 behind. Norman Nato&#8217;s #12 Cadillac slotted into fourth, 0.264 behind the top three with Milesi fourth in his Alpine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Robert Kubica struggled in the Le Mans winning #83, running down the order for most of the session while Jakobsen split the Ferrari works cars with a fastest third sector with Fuoco finishing with a flourish, restoring the a Ferrari front row for but a moment. Ryo Hirakawa had pole at the death with a 1.30.138 for Toyota&#8217;s TS010 on debut, giving shades of 2023 before Giovinazzi went 0.011sec quicker to restore Ferrari&#8217;s front row start. Hirakawa will start second in the #8 Toyota, the top four all split by less than a tenth of a second. Third was the sister #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco, with Malthe Jakobsen fourth in the #94 Peugeot. Norman Nato took fifth in the #12 Caddillac.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">6th would be Toyota&#8217;s #7 of Nyck De Vries, with the #35 Alpine of Charles Milesi 7th and Kubica&#8217;s #83 Ferrari eighth. Both BMW&#8217;s filled the fifth row in 9th and 10th, Robin Frijns&#8217;s #20 ahead of the #15 of Kevin Magnussen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>After Toyota fought them all the way, Ferrari have taken back to back [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[73,18,30,19],"class_list":["post-1445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gt-racing","category-prototype-racing","tag-2026-wec","tag-hypercar","tag-lmgt3","tag-wec"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>2026 6 Hours of Imola - Hypercar Qualifying Report - The Motornerd<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/2026-6-hours-of-imola-hypercar-qualifying-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2026 6 Hours of Imola - Hypercar Qualifying Report - The Motornerd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"After Toyota fought them all the way, Ferrari have taken back to back [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/themotornerd.blog\/index.php\/2026\/04\/18\/2026-6-hours-of-imola-hypercar-qualifying-report\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Motornerd\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-04-18T13:49:07+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-04-18T13:49:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Thomas Groves\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Thomas Groves\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themotornerd.blog\\\/index.php\\\/2026\\\/04\\\/18\\\/2026-6-hours-of-imola-hypercar-qualifying-report\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themotornerd.blog\\\/index.php\\\/2026\\\/04\\\/18\\\/2026-6-hours-of-imola-hypercar-qualifying-report\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Thomas Groves\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/themotornerd.blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/8722946b50d3aa7a5e47b117755caa63\"},\"headline\":\"2026 6 Hours of Imola &#8211; 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