Drive of the Month: Ferrari on the attack

Porsche remains dominant in North America’s IMSA sports car series, following another win for Nick Tandy and Felipe Nasr at Long Beach. But Ferrari has a stranglehold on the World Endurance Championship right now, as James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi made it two from two for the Prancing Horse with a glorious home win at the Imola 6 Hours.

Calado, Pier Guidi and Giovinazzi followed victory for the sister 499P in Qatar with what might have been a comfortable run, were it not for the safety car interruptions that made them sweat to bring joy to the tifosi. It was all the sweeter in the wake of the strategy fumble that cost Ferrari a home win at this race last year.

Calado made the most of pole position to build an early lead from the customer AF Corse 499P driven by fellow countryman Phil Hanson, with Kevin Magnussen’s BMW third at the first round of pitstops 15sec in arrears. But the safety car interludes threw divergent strategies into the mix and brought BMW, Alpine and Toyota into play.

The first interruption at the end of the second hour followed a heavy accident for The Heart of Racing team chief Ian James, whose Aston Martin Vantage GT3 was rudely punted off at Rivazza by the BMW M4 GT3 of Yasser Shahin (James escaped without harm). The safety car was called upon again in the fourth hour when Valentino Rossi dived for a gap that quickly disappeared at the second part of Rivazza, leaving Simon Mann’s Ferrari 296 GT3 picking gravel.

The upshot was that Pier Guidi needed a cool head to steer the winning Ferrari home to win by just 8.4sec over the BMW M Hybrid V8 driven by Robin Frijns, René Rast and Sheldon van der Linde, which had recovered from rear wing damage following Rast’s collision with Mike Conway’s Toyota. Alpine also equalled its best WEC result with third for Mick Schumacher, Frédéric Makowiecki and Jules Gounon.

“I’m over the moon to win in Italy,” said Calado. Next up is Spa – then the Ferrari hat-trick bid at Le Mans.

Driver briefing notes

Miami nice for Wehrlein, Irish eyes are smiling in F2

• The 2025 British GT championship kicked off at Donington Park, as Charles Dawson and Kiern Jewiss converted pole position into their first GT3 victories in 2 Seas’ Mercedes-AMG. But Sandy Mitchell chased them hard in a Barwell Lamborghini, coming up just 1.1sec short at the flag.
  
• Formula E returned to Miami for the first time since its first season for a round on Homestead’s ‘roval’. Nissan’s Norman Nato took pole and was first across the finish line, only to be docked 10sec for failing to take his full Attack Mode allocation. So Porsche’s reigning world champion Pascal Wehrlein picked up his first win of the season.
• Ireland has its first Formula 2 winner since Derek Daly! Alex Dunne, inset – the 2022 British Formula 4 champion – won in Bahrain for Rodin Motorsport after starting fourth on the grid.