ACI Racing Weekend: Imola

Free Practice Friday

Friday morning at Imola has produced three very different pictures across Italian F4, Formula Regional and GT4 Italy, but there was one common theme: nobody was getting much for free.

Rocco Coronel put AKM Motorsport at the top of Italian F4 FP1 after a late improvement, Emanuele Olivieri edged Formula Regional's closely packed field, while Gino Scuderia's Aston Martin set the benchmark in GT4 Italy.

Behind the headlines, however, the sessions were less straightforward.

Track limits played a significant role in the single-seater running, the Formula Regional field was separated by only a few tenths, and the GT4 order began to stretch considerably as the session progressed.

With the Italian GT Endurance Championship also beginning its Imola weekend, there has been plenty of evidence that the Santerno circuit will reward precision as much as outright pace as we head into qualifying later on today.

Italian F4: Coronel's Late Move

Rocco Coronel did not need long to make an impression on his Italian F4 debut.

The 15-year-old Dutchman set the fastest time in Friday morning's FP1, producing a 1:46.841 late in the session to move ahead of Alex Ruta and Jensen Burnett.

Ruta finished second on 1:46.991, while Burnett was third with a 1:47.013. Ary Bansal and Andy Consani completed the top five, with Edward Robinson sixth and Noah Killion seventh.

The result is particularly notable given that Coronel's Italian F4 weekend only began on Thursday. Racing for AKM Motorsport, he had already been the team's leading driver during the opening collective test, finishing seventh in the morning session. His Friday laps so far represent another step forward, rather than an isolated appearance near the front.

Coronel's improvement also came at exactly the right moment. His best lap was set with roughly six minutes remaining, as drivers began to extract more from the cars and the timesheets tightened.

That late push was not without consequences elsewhere in the field.

Track limits became a recurring issue, with Turn 19 responsible for a number of deleted laps throughout the session. At the end of a lap approaching five kilometres in length, the final corner has proved to be an expensive place to overstep the line. Several competitive laps disappeared as drivers tried to find the final few hundredths.

It was a continuation of a theme that had already emerged during Thursday's testing.

Luka Sammalisto had topped the afternoon session with a 1:46.618, only 0.007 seconds ahead of Alp Aksoy. Robinson was third at 1:46.714, Dean Pedersen fourth and Roman Kamyab fifth. Ruta was sixth, just 0.185 seconds off the benchmark. AACI Sport

The morning test had been similarly close, with Kenzo Craigie setting the pace on 1:46.933, only 0.003 seconds ahead of Sammalisto.

So while Coronel's Friday result is significant, it does not suddenly establish AKM as the dominant force at Imola. The evidence from Thursday and Friday instead points towards a field in which the competitive order can change rapidly depending on who gets the clean lap.

That is particularly relevant for Sammalisto.

The US Racing driver arrived at Imola leading the championship, with David Cosma-Cristofor 55 points behind. Sammalisto has the advantage of arriving with proven pace, but the number of drivers capable of putting themselves ahead of him over a single lap means there is little room for an untidy qualifying session.

For Coronel, meanwhile, the situation is simpler; he has already shown that he can match the established front-runners.

Now he has to do it when the points are on the table.

Formula Regional: Olivieri Finds The Final Few Hundredths

The Formula Regional session was a much faster affair, with the cars reaching more than 250 km/h around Imola.

Emanuele Olivieri ultimately came out on top with a 1:39.074, but this result only tells half the story.

Reno Francot was just 0.047 seconds behind, while Oleksandr Bondarev completed the top three on 1:39.350. Sebastian Wheldon and championship leader Kean Nakamura-Berta rounded out the top five.

Olivieri's lap came very late.

Francot had moved to the top with five minutes remaining on a 1:39.121 and Olivieri responded immediately, missing the benchmark by only 0.021 seconds before finding another improvement on the following lap to set the session's fastest time.

The sequence between these two drivers throughout FP1 says more about the session than the final classification does.

The leading drivers were not separated by a meaningful performance gap, they were fighting for hundredths.

Most of the field was circulating around the 1:39.5 mark, while the top ten remained within a few tenths of one another. At Imola, where a small mistake can compromise an entire sector, this shows we can expect very small margins between a strong qualifying position and one further down the order.

The session was also interrupted by a red flag after Gabriel Gomez went off track with 33 minutes remaining. Once the circuit reopened, the pace steadily came down before the final fight between Francot and Olivieri.

Track limits remained a recurring issue in this session too, particularly at Turn 14 and Turn 19.

For drivers in a field this close, losing a lap to a track-limit infringement can completely change your session at a time where the difference between several positions is measured in hundredths.

With qualifying still ahead this afternoon, there is little reason to assume that the order will remain the same.

GT4 Italy: Gino Scuderia Ses The Benchmark

GT4 Italy offered the biggest apparent gap of the morning.

Tiago Bastos and Pedro Ebrahim put Gino Scuderia's #68 Aston Martin Vantage V8 GT4 at the top of the opening GT4 Italy session, setting a 1:52.735 benchmark that stood through FP1. The #68 was consistently among the quickest cars during the session, giving Bastos and Ebrahim an early reference point for the weekend.

Behind them, Alex Fontana and Danilo Arfini in the #75 Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS Clubsport for Centri Porsche Ticino were among the closest challengers, maintaining a gap of just over four tenths for much of the running.

Filippo Zanin and Filippo Bencivenni, in the #5 MEF Motorsport Porsche, and Manuel Lasagni and Filippo Ziccardi, driving the #7 Mercedes-AMG GT4 for CZ Bassano, were also consistent towards the front, although both remained around a second from the Aston Martin benchmark.

There was encouragement later in the session for Giacomo Maman and Gustavo Sandrucci in the #16 BMW M4 GT4 EVO from CASALS Motorsport. Their pace improved as the session progressed, putting the car into the group worth watching in the next practice.

It was a less productive opening session for Paolo Gnemmi and Mattia Happacher in the #51 Centri Porsche Ticino Porsche, while Kornelia Olkucka's #19 LEMA Racing Mercedes-AMG GT4 also struggled to match the leading pace.

The most notable change came as the session developed. The field initially looked relatively compact, but the gaps grew towards the chequered flag, with roughly two seconds separating first from second in the closing stages.

As we know, Friday morning practice is not necessarily a direct indication of qualifying or race pace, particularly in GT racing, where teams can be running different fuel loads, tyres and programmes. The #68's advantage is therefore encouraging rather than conclusive.

For Bastos and Ebrahim, however, it is an ideal way to start the weekend.

For Fontana and Arfini, Maman and Sandrucci, Zanin and Bencivenni and the other front-running crews, the second practice session provides an opportunity to close the gap and establish whether Gino Scuderia has found a genuine advantage or simply produced the most complete opening run.

With Imola the penultimate round of the GT4 Italy season, there is not much time left for teams to find answers.

CIGT Endurance

The Endurance field faces a different task at Imola this weekend.

With a three-hour race on Sunday and multiple practice and qualifying sessions still to come, teams have time to work through fuel loads, tyres, driver combinations and race preparation.

But the championship picture makes this weekend particularly important.

Imola presents the third of four rounds in the 2026 Italian GT Endurance Championship, with the season finale scheduled for Mugello in November. ACI Sport has 52 cars entered for the Imola Endurance event, underlining the scale of the weekend.

One of the key stories is Spirit of Racing and its Ferrari, which arrives looking for redemption.

In the GT Cup Division 1 Am standings, the margins are particularly tight. Michele Rugolo and Bernardo Pellegrini are tied on 1,077 points, with Lorenzo Nicoli only seven points behind on 1,070. Francesco Galli sits on 1,033, followed by Angelo Lancelotti on 1,043 and Luca De Marchi on 1,030, while Spirit of Racing's Willem van der Vorm is also within the wider group on 1,021.

The order is close enough that a single strong result can change the complexion of the fight.

For Spirit of Racing, that makes Imola an opportunity as much as a test.

The team has experience of the circuit and arrives with drivers capable of competing at the front, but Endurance racing does not offer the same immediacy as F4 or Formula Regional.

A quick lap is useful; but three hours of consistent execution is what ultimately matters.

ACI Sport's schedule reflects that. The Endurance field is set to have two 60-minute practice sessions on Friday, another on Saturday morning and three qualifying sessions on Saturday afternoon before the three-hour race on Sunday at 12:05.

So FP1 should be read carefully.

The important questions are not only who was quickest, but what each team learned: how the tyres behave over a run, how the cars respond to traffic and how much performance remains to be found before qualifying.

For Spirit of Racing, the priority is obvious.

A stronger Imola weekend would not just improve its position in one race. It could materially alter a championship battle in which the leading crews are separated by remarkably small margins.

ACI Friday So Far

The morning sessions at Imola have done little to settle the competitive picture — and that is probably the most interesting takeaway heading into qualifying this afternoon.

Italian F4 has produced perhaps the biggest surprise, with Rocco Coronel putting AKM Motorsport at the top of the timesheets after already showing promising pace on Thursday. But with Alex Ruta only 0.150 seconds away and the championship contenders close behind, there is little to suggest the order will remain unchanged when the drivers get their first real opportunity to chase a grid position.

Formula Regional looks even tighter. Olivieri's 1:39.074 was the benchmark, but Francot was just 0.047 seconds away. With the top ten covered by only a few tenths, qualifying could come down to who gets a clean lap — and, just as importantly, who keeps it within the track limits.

GT4 Italy presents a different picture. Bastos and Ebrahim have given Gino Scuderia a strong starting point with the #68 Aston Martin, but the growing gaps towards the end of FP1 need to be put into context. Different fuel and tyre programmes mean there is still plenty of scope for the order to change before qualifying.

The Endurance field is harder to read at this stage, with long-run preparation and traffic management likely to be more relevant than outright FP1 pace. For the championship contenders, particularly those fighting at the front of Division 1 Am, the priority is finding a raceable car rather than chasing a Friday headline.

That leaves qualifying as the first real checkpoint of the weekend.

Who can turn practice pace into a lap when the pressure is on? Can Coronel stay ahead of the established F4 contenders? Will Olivieri's advantage hold up when the Formula Regional field gets a clear run? And can anyone close the gap to Gino Scuderia's Aston Martin?

By the end of this afternoon, we should have some answers, but for now, Imola has given us plenty of reasons to keep watching.