Leclerc throws down the gauntlet in Imola

Imola, 17 May 2024 | 20:11 Europe/Amsterdam Leclerc throws down the gauntlet in Imola Featured-Practice-ITi24 Conditions-Friday-ITi24-EN Leclerc and Ferrari stamped their authority on the first day of track action for the Gran Premio del Made in Italy e dell’Emilia-Romagna. The Monegasque was quickest in both free practice sessions with a 1’16”990 in the first and a 1’15”906 in the second. Unusually, there’s no sign of a Red Bull driver in the top three on either time sheet. Second in FP1 was George Russell (Mercedes, 1’17”094) with Ferrari’s Carlos Sainz third (1’17”120), while in FP2 second and third went to Oscar Piastri (McLaren, 1’16”088) and Yuki Tsunoda (1’16”286). THE DAY ON TRACKAfter the last two rounds were run to the Sprint format, Imola marks a return to the classic scenario with Friday given over to two hours of free practice. The work the teams need to do in relation to the tyres is therefore based on a rather standard programme, especially in the second session where all the drivers began by finishing off their set-up work on the Medium or Hard tyres, before switching to the Softs for a qualifying simulation. They then ended with some long runs on full fuel loads, using mainly the Medium and the Hard. The C4 saw the most use (271 laps) while there was an equal split of the remaining laps between the C3 (149) and C5 (151). SIMONE BERRA – CHIEF ENGINEER“With five minutes of track time lost through the only red flag of the day, that left 115 action packed minutes at Imola on one of the truly classic tracks on the calendar. We brought our three softest compounds here, based on an assessment of what we saw in the race in 2022, when the C2 was hardly used, because we believe this choice could give the teams a wider range of strategy options, even if this race usually entails just a single pit stop.Predictably, especially after yesterday’s heavy rain, in the first session, the track was still quite “green” and the grip level from the asphalt rapidly increased as the cars did more and more laps. This rapid track evolution continued in the second session, although less so. The wind caused some disturbance, especially in FP1 with temperatures remaining reasonably stable around 27/28 °C for the ambient, while the track went from an average of 50 °C in the first session to 39 °C in the second, conditions which we could see in Sunday’s race.The Medium and Hard tyres proved very competitive in terms of performance over a long run, while the Soft, especially in very high temperatures, could turn out to be quite tricky to manage over a large number of laps. The performance difference over a lap between each of the compounds is around half a second. From what we could see, some teams have not yet found the best way to get the most out of the C5 on a flying lap, while the C4 suffered with a very small amount of graining on the right side, especially the front tyre.” 07-IT24-Practice3-EN FORMULA 2Last year’s Formula 3 champion Gabriel Bortoleto will start Sunday’s Feature Race of the fourth round of the FIA Formula 2 Championship from pole position. The Brazilian, sporting a helmet with a design in memory of Ayrton Senna set the fastest time of 1’27”056. The Invicta Racing driver finished ahead of Oliver Bearman (Prema Racing, 1’27”111) and Isack Hadjar (Campos Racing, 1’27”272). For this first round in Italy, Pirelli has chosen the P Zero Yello medium and P Zero Purple supersoft compounds, the same selection that would have been used for the 2023 event which had to be cancelled last May because of the floods that hit the Emilia-Romagna region.FORMULA 3It was a Trident 1-2-3 in qualifying for the third round of the FIA Formula 3 Championship. Pole position went to Mexico’s Santiago Ramos (1’31”767) ahead of Italy’s Leonardo Fornaroli (1’31”820) and Frenchman Sami Meguetonif (1’32”019). The first Formula 3 round to be held in Europe takes place on a classic track with several changes of elevation. The Imola track does not exert high forces on the tyres but, despite the track surface being very old and smooth, tyre degradation can be an important factor, especially as the temperatures could be quite high. The Italian event is a good test for the young drivers because the track is narrow and it is not easy to overtake, on top of which there is only one DRS zone. Pirelli’s tyre choice, the P Zero Yellow medium compound, is the same as the one that would have been used last year when the event had to be cancelled because of bad weather in the Emilia-Romagna region. PIRELLI IN MOTORSPORT Founded in 1872, Pirelli is a company with deep Italian roots now recognised all over the world for its cutting-edge technology, capacity for innovation, and the quality of its products. Motorsport has always played an important part in Pirelli’s strategy, following the ‘race to road’ philosophy. The company has been engaged in motorsport for 116 years and today supplies t