Home favourites Ferrari find themselves behind two rivals on day one at Imola

While Formula 1 is forced to take a break and Max Verstappen is racing at the Nurburgring, the WEC season has kicked off in Imola. On the sun-drenched Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari, it wasn’t home favourites Ferrari calling the shots on Friday afternoon.

Instead, the surprise was Alpine, which topped the timesheets at the end of the second free practice session. Charles Milesi set the benchmark for the trio, which also includes Antonio Felix da Costa and Ferdinand Habsburg.

In the end, Milesi was a tenth quicker than Nyck de Vries in the Toyota. Home favourites Ferrari, which dominated FP1, had to settle for third and fourth.

This weekend marks the first race of the endurance championship, after the Bahrain event was postponed due to the ongoing Middle East turmoil. As a result, the race in Italy provides the first indication of the pecking order, with reigning champion Ferrari seen as the top favourites, especially now that Porsche has left the WEC.

A year before McLaren and Ford make their WEC debut, Genesis is the newcomer. This brand from the Hyundai group has former world champion Andre Lotterer on its roster. Daniel Juncadella also drives for the South Korean squad.

The Spaniard is a Verstappen Racing driver as well, and will compete with Verstappen in the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring soon.

Genesis clearly still needs to acclimate to the WEC, as it was the slowest of the hypercars. In the end, they trailed the fastest Alpine by 1.4 seconds.