Supporting this series will again be the ADAC GT4 Germany Series who themselves kick off their six-round season from Oschersleben with again, two Aston Martin Racing Vantage GT4’s from the Prosport Racing team.

This sees the Christoph Esser lead team run a double programme this weekend with the NLS2 event from the Nurburgring with the former champion Hugo Sasse into the equation.

Again running a pair of the older but very successful 17A variants of the Vantage, Sasse will pair with Roman Fellner-Feldegg as they did for the final round of the GT4 Winter Series at Barcelona earlier this year with former team GT3 racer Marek Bockmann pair up with relative GT4 newcomer Anton Abee.

They too will race an hour-long pit stop punctuated race over both Saturday and Sunday.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media

Despite a wet opening session, the preceding sessions including Qualifying were all cool but dry as #007 Heart of Racing Valkyrie of Harry Tincknell and Tom Gamble pipped their sister #009 car of Alex Riberas and Marco Sorensen at the tail end of the Hypercar class to start Sundays six-hour affair from P17 and P18 respectively.

It was better in LMGT3, and Ian James again got through to class Hyperpole within his #27 Aston Martin Racing Vantage LMGT3 to claim P3 overall whilst the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR entry of Derek DeBoer (and Eduardo Barrichello and Valentin Hasse-Clot) had to make do with a P15 start position.

With the possibility of rain at some point throughout the race a distinct threat, the race got off to its usual fraught start with plenty of banging of panels and wheels throughout the thirty-six strong grid in those opening laps. Whilst James dropped in those opening laps to P3 in class, DeBoer would hold station in P15 for much of his opening stint including when he had a Corvette being spat out of a gravel trap almost directly into his path!

In Hypercar, whilst both cars could enter one off laps just tenths of a second off the pace of their class leaders, the longevity was that the new chassis was still ‘underpowered’ despite inter-round Balance of performance gains in comparison and with its lack of hybrid system by design, that would affect both cars performances all around the tight circuit despite the best of efforts from the drivers. For them, there would be no marvellous opportunist race result, rather than just the next logical steps along the cars developmental curve – this time by having both cars finish the race as opposed to Qatar’s opener when only the #009 completed that ten-hour debut.

Ninety minutes into the race, the #27 car of James was halfway through his customary double opening stint when he had the #31 BMW LMGT3 all over the back of him. Giving cautious space to the over-eager bronze rated driver aboard that car, the Englishman watched as the BMW passed him for position only by taking his car completely off track for which the Australian aboard the #31, he had to give that one back.

Two laps later, however, the same car tapped the rear of the #27 into the braking area of Rivazza spearing him (fortunately) backwards into the outside retaining wall and abruptly into tyre wall. A few seconds passed before James was seen extricating himself from what was left of his car but importantly, otherwise OK. That obviously left both Mattia Drudi and P3 qualifying pacesetter Zacharie Robichon without a chance to impress.

That would take that car out of the race and bring out the Safety car for the first time, leaving just the #10 Racing Spirit of Leman AMR in class with Barichello now aboard as he chased down the forty-three second deficit to the leading BMW.

Just after the halfway mark, the #31 BMW was again being attracted to an Aston Martin as that car was attempting to line up Barichello aboard the #10 car for position. Again, that manoeuvre didn’t go according to plan and heavy contact was made between them as they made their way through Tamburello. Whilst the #10 car took the damage, the #31 would eventually take a drive through penalty for his efforts – not for the contact which was later seen as a racing incident by Race Control but for its unsafe return to the track immediately in front of three Hypercars.

With the skies darkening slightly, ambient temperature lowering and humidity increasing, eyes were again looking up as the race entered its final ninety minutes. AMR factory driver Hasse-Clot had now taken charge of the #10 car after a mega middle stint from the young Brazilian to race the car to the flag from his then P6 in class.

Too far to go without stopping again for fuel, the Frenchman battled his way up to P3 in class but with the former class leading #46 BMW right behind. Having to pit for that splash of fuel, the #10 returned to the track back down in P10 but eventually finished P11.

Faltering a little on fuel strategy, the team would have to work out where they might have been had it not been for that heavy contact with the #31 car which damaged their defuser and side sills of the car, but all will have to wait until the next round of the Championship from Spa Francorchamps in just under three weeks’ time.

Photo credits – Teams / social media / DPPI WEC

Before Qatar, it had just been a load of development testing for the two crews but running parallel programmes with the car within the IMSA Weathertech Sportscar Championship as they do, the acquisition of race data from both sides has allowed the car to develop and improve already.

Free Practice 1 got underway earlier this week with the first wet session of the season which saw the #009 take long strides up the timing screen by the end of the session with the #007 more in contact with their peers than before. Within LMGT3, both cars figured around the midfield of the class, less than a second behind the fastest as all drivers got their eye in around the 4.9km circuit.

FP2 was much the same although the #007 lost all of the lap times set by Harry Tincknell when he was aboard for speeding within the pit lane whilst both the #10 and #27 crews closed the gaps to the pace setting Lexus cars to just over half a second.

Going into this morning’s final Free Practice session, both Valkyrie crews lifted their cars off the bottom of the timing screens both on pace as well as via the misfortunes of others to go into Qualifying in a positive vein.

The GT’s again went out first for Qualifying with Ian James again leading the AMR powered charge within his #27 car with Derek DeBoer still experiencing his first taste of the Italian circuit within his #10 car. Whilst a best lap time of 1:43:994 was good enough to take him through to LMGT3 Hyperpole, DeBoer’s best of 1:44:591 was not so the car that he shares with Eduardo Barrichello and Valentin Hasse-Clot was locked to P15 for tomorrows race.

It was then a great job from a standing start from Zacharie Robichon who took over the #27 HoRT in Hyperpole nd saw him grab a second row start in P3 for his efforts.

Next out were the Hypercar class with both Tincknell (with Tom Gamble) and Marco Sorensen (with Alex Riberas) driving the #007 and #009 cars respectively where the Dane lost perhaps his best lap time due to track limits on lap 4 to again finish behind their sister car in the timing ranks. Again, not making it through to Hyperpole, the two Valkyries both improved upon their Qualifying pace of last time to start tomorrows race 16thand 17th in class.

The Six hours of Imola gets waved off at 13:00hrs local tomorrow.

Photo credits – Teams / Series / social media