Toyota outgunned Ferrari on track and in the pits to claim victory in the World Endurance Championship’s Imola opener on Sunday.
Sebastien Buemi, Ryo Hirakawa and Brendon Hartley clinched the top spot in the upgraded #8 Toyota TR010 Hybrid, granting the Japanese manufacturer a win on its 100th WEC start.
The pole-sitting #51 Ferrari 499P crewed by Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi had to settle for second, while Kamui Kobayashi, Nyck de Vries and Mike Conway completed the podium in the #7 Toyota.
The race boiled down to a two-horse battle between the two manufacturers, with the likes of Alpine, BMW and Peugeot unable to trouble the frontrunners for the majority of the day.
At the start, Calado pulled away cleanly from pole position in the #51 Ferrari, with team-mate Molina taking advantage of soft tyres to pass Hartley’s Toyota for second.
Ferrari held a 1-2 for about an hour before a faster service from the Toyota crew allowed Hartley to regain the position he had lost to Molina.
Toyota then rolled the dice towards the end of the second hour, bringing in the #8 for a driver change without switching tyres.
This allowed Hirakawa, who took over from Hartley, to assume the lead of the race, ahead of the #51 Ferrari now driven by Pier Guidi.
The strategy played into Toyota’s hands when Hypercar debutant Nick Cassidy beached the #93 Peugeot 9X8 on cold tyres on his outlap, bringing out the VSC and granting the #8 TR010 Hybrid a free pitstop.
Both the lead Toyota and the chasing Ferrari came into the pits under caution, but Hirakawa returned on track with his lead intact - and now also on fresh tyres.
Ferrari responded to Toyota’s tactics by bringing in Pier Guidi early during the next pitstop cycle but failed to undercut Hirakawa, who went on to extend his advantage to over four seconds.
In the meantime, the #7 Toyota had worked its way back to third place by extending its tyre life, having dropped as low as seventh in the first stint.
Another stop without changing the tyres allowed the #7 Toyota to rejoin ahead of Pier Guidi and hold back the Ferrari driver, helping Hirakawa cement his position at the front in the penultimate hour.
The #51 Ferrari managed to retake second when the #7 Toyota took four new tyres at its final pitstop, but by this stage Buemi had built a lead of 10 seconds at the front of the field.
With the rain failing to arrive despite a looming threat in the final two hours, Buemi took the chequered flag with a winning margin of 13s. The result marked Toyota’s second consecutive victory in the WEC, following the #7 car’s success in November’s Bahrain finale, and the first for the #8 crew since 2024.
The #51 Ferrari trio could make no in-roads in the final stint and had to settle for second, while Kobayashi brought home the #7 Toyota in third place.
Despite a constant threat of rain in the second half, the skies cleared in the final hour, allowing the race to run to the finish without drama.
Alpine put on a strong performance in the Imola season opener, with Charles Milesi, Ferdinand Habsburg and Antonio Felix da Costa delivering a clean race to finish fourth in the upgraded #35 A424 LMDh.
Rene Rast held off a late attack from the #50 Ferrari of Antonio Fuoco to complete the top five for the #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 he shared with Robin Frijns. That was despite Rast picking up a drive-through penalty midway through the race for a VSC infringement.
Fuoco and his team-mates Miguel Molina, Antonio Fuoco and Nicklas Nielsen were in contention for the podium in the first half of the race, but a drive-through penalty for a yellow flag infringement left the #50 Ferrari sixth at the finish.