The 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship shook off its winter quiet in warm spring sunshine at Imola, with 35 cars from 14 manufacturers finally let loose around the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari. Ferrari gave the tifosi exactly what they came for by locking out the top three places in the opening Free Practice session, but by the end of FP2 it was Alpine on top of the times and the gaps had shrunk to less than a second across the top 14 Hypercars. In LMGT3, Corvette and Aston Martin traded the early punches, while a string of new names — and a couple of minor offs and Full Course Yellows — underlined just how tight this year’s field is likely to be.
Hypercar: Ferrari’s early sweep, Alpine’s late statement
Ferrari set the tone in FP1, Robert Kubica putting the #83 AF Corse Ferrari 499P on top with a 1m31.739s, continuing that car’s habit of topping the first session every year since Imola joined the WEC calendar. The Polish driver, sharing again with 2025 Le Mans winners Yifei Ye and Phil Hanson, was chased all the way by the two works 499Ps: Antonio Fuoco’s #50 just 0.023s slower, and the reigning world champions in the #51 — James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi — ending up 0.243s off Kubica’s benchmark. On home ground and with the grandstands already full of red, Ferrari looked very much in control.
Best of the rest in FP1 was the #12 Cadillac Hertz Team JOTA V-Series.R, Will Stevens putting in a 1m32.183s as he and Norman Nato adapt to life without Alex Lynn, who will miss the first two rounds for scheduled neck surgery. Behind them, both Team Peugeot TotalEnergies 9X8s had a quietly encouraging start, the #94 (Loïc Duval, Théo Pourchaire, Malthe Jakobsen) edging the sister #93 (Paul di Resta, Stoffel Vandoorne, Nick Cassidy) for fifth and sixth. Toyota Racing’s new-look TR010 Hybrid slotted into seventh with Sébastien Buemi in the #8 as the Japanese giant heads towards its 100th WEC start, while the #35 Alpine A424 and both new BMW M Hybrid V8s completed the early top ten. Genesis Magma Racing’s GMR-001s, in their first official WEC outing, ended FP1 in 15th and 16th as the South Korean marque eased into the weekend.
If FP1 belonged to Ferrari, FP2 belonged to Alpine — and to the stopwatch. Charles Milesi fired the #35 Alpine A424 to a 1m31.122s, some six tenths faster than Kubica’s morning time and a clear sign that the French manufacturer intends to be in the fight on Sunday. That car, shared with Ferdinand Habsburg and new signing António Félix da Costa, already has form here after a podium 12 months ago, and Milesi’s effort put everyone on notice.
Toyota pushed itself into the conversation too. Nyck de Vries produced the second-best time of the afternoon in the #7 TR010, a 1m31.0 that showcased the potential of Toyota’s winter aero update as he and team-mates Kamui Kobayashi and Mike Conway settle into the latest evolution of a very successful package. Ferrari, this time, had to settle for third and fourth, the #50 only narrowly ahead of the #51 as the pair circulated within six-hundredths of a second of each other.
Peugeot maintained its strong all-round look with the #94 9X8 in fifth, while BMW M Team WRT’s #20 entry for René Rast and Robin Frijns took a notable step forward in sixth. The #83 Ferrari that ruled the morning was seventh in FP2, just ahead of the #007 Aston Martin Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble, the British-built Hypercar edging into the sharp end as the track rubbered in. The #36 Alpine and the #8 Toyota rounded out the top ten, with the Cadillacs down in 11th and 14th as they chased balance and track position.
The headline number by the end of the day was the spread: less than a second covering the top 14 Hypercars, and Genesis already within roughly 1.4s of Milesi’s outright best in the hands of double world champion André Lotterer. For a first proper day of the season, it’s exactly the sort of congestion WEC’s organisers would have hoped for.
LMGT3: Corvette starts on top, Pauwels and Aston grab the afternoon
LMGT3 opened the new campaign with a familiar name at the top and a new one stealing the limelight. In FP1, Charlie Eastwood put the #34 Racing Team Turkey by TF Corvette Z06 GT3.R on top with a 1m42.678s, giving the Anglo-Turkish squad the early bragging rights. Finn Gehrsitz, now in Garage 59 colours, was next-best in the #58 McLaren he shares with Alexander West and FIA WEC debutant Benjamin Goethe, just 0.170s slower. Local specialist Mattia Drudi, based just over the border in San Marino, planted the #27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin into third with a 1m42.891s, continuing his strong Imola form alongside Ian James and Zacharie Robichon.
Fourth in the opening run went to the #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari of Alessio Rovera, Simon Mann and François Hériau, Rovera’s 1m42.919s putting the Italian squad right in the mix. The second Garage 59 entry, the #10 McLaren, was next despite a trip through the gravel at Tamburello for Antares Au that triggered the first Full Course Yellow after just 15 minutes. The #23 Heart of Racing Aston Martin — shared by Gray Newell, rising Belgian Kobe Pauwels and the ever-dependable Jonny Adam — rounded out the top six as Pauwels and Newell got more WEC mileage under their belts. The champion #92 car, now running as The Bend Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 R, ended the first session down in 12th, while Darren Leung’s brief off at Variante Alta in the BMW brought out a second FCY as marshals retrieved a displaced bollard.
By FP2, it was Pauwels’ turn to headline. The Belgian rookie produced a standout 1m42.081s in the #23 Heart of Racing Aston, topping a very tight LMGT3 classification and underlining the potential of that line-up. He edged another newcomer, Hadrien David, by just 0.070s — the Frenchman setting the pace for much of the session in the #78 Akkodis ASP Lexus before the Aston’s late improvement. David’s lap was not only enough for second, it was quicker than Drudi’s best in the sister #27 Aston, reinforcing Akkodis’ status as a serious contender.
The symmetry at the top continued with the second Akkodis ASP Lexus slotting into fourth, as 2026 Interlagos winners José María López, Petru Umbrărescu and Clemens Schmid put together a quietly efficient session that leaves the Jérôme Policand-led squad well placed ahead of qualifying. TF Sport also stayed very much in the frame: the #33 Corvette of Jonny Edgar, Nicky Catsburg and Ben Keating stand-in Blake McDonald recorded a 1m42.426s for fifth, while the FP1-topping #34 car lost half the session to a suspected water-pressure issue before Peter Dempsey and Salih Yoluç strung together a run of quick laps, Yoluç ultimately putting it sixth on a 1m42.527s.
Behind them, the #21 VISTA AF Corse Ferrari remained a consistent presence in seventh as Rovera, Mann and Hériau quietly begin their attempt to go one better than their 2025 runners-up finish. With the class covered by small margins and storylines already emerging at both ends of the timing screens, LMGT3 looks set to be every bit as intense as the headline Hypercar fight when the real business starts on Sunday.
