The final race of the weekend at Imola saw James Owen and Bence Valint split the Trofeo Pirelli AM and Trofeo Pirelli titles. The Meridian Modena – Engstler driver seized the moment in tricky conditions to win the AM world title ahead of his rivals and winning the overall race.

Owen made the most of the rain, which fell heavily in the last 10 minutes of the race. This was the key factor that affected the outcome in favour of the British driver, but also Valint, who saw his main rivals Giacomo Altoè and Luca Ludwig eliminated from the battle for remaining on the track with slicks for too long.

It was Altoè who got the best possible start from pole, with Ludwig slotting in behind aiming to hassle him throughout in an all-Italian duel. The first upset, however, came after 10 minutes with a spectacular high-speed incident at Tamburello.

Shortly before the braking point, Claus Zibrandtsen lost control of his 296, and after suddenly swerving to the left, the Danish driver’s car picked up speed on the wet grass and slid towards the chicane, hitting Luigi Coluccio’s 296 head-on. The impact was violent, but fortunately both stepped out of their respective cars unscathed.

This incident, however, forced the Race Direction to display the red flag, stopping the race for several minutes to allow the track marshals to remove the damaged cars.

At the restart, Altoè and Ludwig picked up where they left off, at the top and battling for first place. The situation seemed to have stabilized, with the two Italians fighting for the Trofeo Pirelli title.
With eight minutes to go, the rain started to fall and Altoè had to give up first place to Owen. Both the Italians were on slicks, while Owen, who had switched to rain tyres earlier, immediately felt at ease on the wet track and powered his way ahead.

Owen was able to manage an advantage of more than half a minute over second-placed Roberto Perrina, first among the Trofeo Pirelli drivers. The Ferrari of Seattle team man, however, made a mistake, slipping to fourth overall and second in his category behind Valint.

A few moments later, Jay Logan went off the track, ending up beached in the gravel. This forced the Race Direction to send the Safety Car out again, thus wiping out the advantage of more than half a minute that Owen had accumulated in the previous laps.

At that point, with four minutes plus one lap to go, the race ended under the Safety Car, with Owen ahead of Giammarco Marzialetti and crowned Trofeo Pirelli AM champion. Bence Valint, on the other hand, finished third, but as he was the first Trofeo Pirelli driver to the flag, he won the category title.

The result was a bit of a travesty for Altoè and Ludwig, who were clearly the fastest drivers on the track but who were forced to settle for sixth overall (third in class) and eleventh overall and seventh in class respectively. Both were penalized for their decision to remain on slick tires when another heavy downpour arrived to flood the Santerno circuit nine minutes from the end of the race.

Finali Mondiali Ferrari – Trofeo Pirelli e Trofeo Pirelli AM – Final classification

Henry Hassid was crowned world champion in the Coppa Shell category thanks to a superb race in comeback style. Starting from P8 on the grid, the Frenchman stamped his authority on the competition right from the start, quite literally flying on the damp track of the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari in Imola.

The Kessel Racing driver took just one lap to pass from eighth place to first as he looked to be perfectly at home in the mixed conditions, while another of the leading protagonists, his teammate and polesitter Ernst Kirchmayr quickly lost several positions, dropping to sixth position.

In the early stages, the battle for second place was between Rey Acosta (The Collection) and Yasutaka Shirasaki (Rosso Scuderia), with the Japanese driver passing his American rival on lap 3 to move into second place.

Acosta was unable to reply and came under pressure from Andrea Ritzi, fourth and eager to take a prestigious podium. On lap 6 the driver of the CDP – D&C Racing team made a decisive attack to move into a provisional third place.

The next piece of on-track action came when John Dhillon, while he was battling for seventh position, lost control on the straight between Acque Minerali and Variante Alta, ending up by violently crashing into the wall. The front left wheel of the British driver’s 296 was detached and a fire broke out in the engine, all of which meant that the Race Direction sent the Safety Car out onto the track.

The race resumed with four minutes to go, and Hassid immediately tried to break away from Shirasaki, Ritzi and Kirchmayr, who had climbed to fourth place after overtaking a struggling Acosta.

On lap 12, Ritzi managed to overtake Shirasaki, but just before the braking point of the Variante del Tamburello, Kirchmayr and Shirasaki flanked each other and made contact, with the latter ending up against the wall. This time the Race Direction brought the red flags out, and that was followed by the chequered flag as there was no further action on track.

The final standings, therefore, saw Hassid as the Coppa Shell World Finals champion ahead of Ritzi and Kirchmayr.

There was also a good scrap in the 488 class. Qwin Wietlisbach, who started from pole, held onto first place but halfway through the race he ended up in the sights of Fabrizio Fontana (Formula Racing). The Italian, shaving off tenth after tenth, eventually caught up with the category leader.

When the race resumed after the first intervention of the Safety Car, Wietlisbach managed to hold off the attacks launched by Fontana and was crowned champion. Third place went to Maurizio Pitorri, several seconds adrift of the first two.

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Tyler Reddick won the opening stage at Las Vegas Motor Speedway, only for his race to go upside down moments later — literally.

On lap 89, Reddick had a run on the outside and made it three-wide with Chase Elliott and Martin Truex Jr. beneath him. They drifted up and contact was made between Elliott and Reddick, leading both drivers to crash. As they moved across the track, Brad Keselowski was collected, and all three cars spun out of control through the infield grass.

Then, in a surprising flip / roll, Reddick’s car dug in and flipped over as it slid sideways over the transition between infield asphalt and grass. His race was over. Reddick will finish 36th.

Keselowski’s car went back up the track in the final moments of the incident, causing the Team Penske drivers of Ryan Blaney and Austin Cindric to slam the outside wall in avoidance. Cindric, Keselowski, and Reddick were unable to continue. Defending champ Blaney went multiple laps down and Elliott went to the garage for extensive repairs after meeting minimum speed. 

“You just gotta be aggressive on restarts,” said Reddick after being released from the infield care center. “It’s how this Next Gen racing has been since the beginning. I kind of saw them both have a moment and I had just a split second to make a decision. You gotta be aggressive. You gotta try and get those spots back on a restart. It can be hard to pass after a while.”

“By the time I realized I was in trouble, it was just too late. The No. 19 [Truex] starts sliding, the No. 9 [Elliott] was coming up and I was pretty much already on their outside. At that point, there is nowhere to really go. I needed to make the decision earlier when I saw them sliding. Just be a little more conservative. That would have avoided the incident. Just not who I am, not what we do.

“It’s unfortunate. It took us out of the race. We had a really fast Camry. Thought we would have been in the mix all day long.”

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Ferrari will continue with an unchanged Hypercar class driver line-up in next year’s World Endurance Championship.

Antonello Coletta, Ferrari’s head of sportscar racing, confirmed on Sunday that the #50 499P Le Mans Hypercar will be raced in 2025 by Antonio Fuoco, Nicklas Nielsen and Miguel Molina and #51 by James Calado, Alessandro Pier Guidi and Antonio Giovinazzi for a third consecutive season.

The announcement made at the Ferrari World Finals for its one-make challenge series at Imola followed news announced on Saturday that Fuoco and Molina had renewed their factory contracts for next year.

Calado and Pier Guidi were granted contract extensions this time last year.

Coletta explained that there was no reason to make changes to the driver roster for the third campaign by the factory AF Corse team in the WEC.

“It is confirmed: #50 and #51 will not change – we will have the same drivers,” he said. “The #50 and #51 will be exactly the same.

#51 Ferrari AF Corse Ferrari 499P: Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi

Photo by: JEP / Motorsport Images

“We are happy with the line-ups: we have won with both at the Le Mans 24 Hours [with #51 in 2023 and #50 in ’24].”

Coletta stressed the importance of “consistency and continuity” in terms of the drivers on its Hypercar squad.

“When we started with the 499P and chose our GT pilots some people were not happy,” he continued.

“But even the sceptics have had to change their minds. All six 499P drivers have won Le Mans, which I think validates our choices.”

There has been no confirmation of the drivers for the #83 satellite entry run by AF Corse on a customer basis and driven this year by Robert Kubica, Yifei Ye and Robert Shwartzman

Coletta outlined a hope to “announce it just before the Bahrain race” [this year’s WEC final on 2 November.

He ruled out Arthur Leclerc, brother of Ferrari F1 driver Charles, racing the car next year, even though he is scheduled to test one of the 499Ps in the WEC rookie test at Bahrain the day after the season finale.

Coletta explained that the younger of the Leclerc brothers, who is listed as a development driver for the F1 team, still needed to learn about sportscar racing.

He was placed by Ferrari for this year in the endurance segment of the Italian GT Championship, which he is contesting alongside his LMP2 commitments in the European Le Mans Series with Panis Racing.

“Our goal is for Arthur to keep learning about endurance and then there might be the chance for him to catch an opportunity in one of our prototypes in the future,” said Coletta.

Davide Rigon, Alessio Rovera, Daniel Serra and Lilou Wadoux, who are all part of the Ferrari factory roster of GT3 drivers, have also had their contracts extended into next year.