At the scene of its first victory of last year’s World Championship-winning campaign, morning rain created changing track conditions in first practice before a sunny second session allowed preparations to accelerate for a weekend which can kick start the team’s challenge for both titles this season.

The #7 GR010 HYBRID of Mike Conway, Kamui Kobayashi and Nyck de Vries were eighth fastest after a productive day, while Sébastien Buemi, Brendon Hartley and Ryo Hirakawa in the #8 GR010 HYBRID were 14th.

The track was declared wet for the start of first practice on a cool, damp morning, so in the early stages race engineers and drivers frequently evaluated, via radio, how to adapt to the drying surface. After around 15 minutes they decided to change from wet to slick tyres. Experience of track evolution in changing weather could be critical later in the weekend, so drivers discussed intensively together, and with the race engineers, to share their experiences of these conditions.

Between the two sessions, drivers and engineers analysed car performance in debriefs to search for improvements before second practice. Once the plan of action was decided, the mechanics had to work efficiently in the limited time available to make changes before the session began.

On a dry track, second practice saw more focus on tyre performance and durability, to enable drivers to feel how the different tyre compounds warm up and evolve. Soft and medium compounds are available this week at Imola, which is different to the medium and hard Michelin tyres offered a year ago. Both cars tried out each compound during a dry session, after which the drivers and crews – as they did on Thursday and after first practice – fine-tuned pit stop procedures.

The on-track team, including all drivers, will now combine their experience and knowledge to analyse information gathered during the two practice sessions to optimise the GR010 HYBRIDs in time for third practice on Saturday morning. That is the final opportunity to test the cars before qualifying, which starts at 3.10pm CEST for the 18-strong Hypercar grid. The race begins at 1pm on Sunday.

Kamui Kobayashi (Team Principal and driver, car #7):

“It’s good to be back here in Imola, even if the weather has been a bit mixed today. The changing conditions in first practice made it tricky early in the session but it’s good to have experience of driving on a drying track here. We went through our programme and had a reasonably smooth day. We’re not as competitive as we want to be yet, so we need to work hard overnight and tomorrow to maximise our chances.”

Mike Conway (Driver, car #7):

“Today was just about getting through the programme, trying out some changes and getting more experience with the tyres. It all went pretty smoothly. We’re not at the very top yet but it looks like we are in the fight and hopefully we can come away with some good points. There’s still room for improvement and we need to look at the data to work out what we can do to get better. We’ll keep pushing and we will try to get ourselves up there in qualifying.”

Nyck de Vries (Driver, car #7):

“I think it was a decent day for us. I had a lot of fun on track, and it was nice being back in the car here because it’s an enjoyable circuit. Everyone was very close today and it was hard to get a good lap together due to the traffic. It looks like we are in the mix but not quite strong enough yet to challenge the top. Let’s see tomorrow and Sunday, when it matters.”

Sébastien Buemi (Driver, car #8):

“It was a positive day in different conditions. We still managed to do a lot of laps, and now we have a better impression of the tyre degradation with the two compounds. So, we have plenty of data to analyse before tomorrow. Even though it doesn’t look too good for us on the timing sheets, I feel quite confident for the weekend, and I can’t wait to come back tomorrow.”

Brendon Hartley (Driver, car #8):

“We had a productive day all round and I think all the drivers on car #8 have been quite happy with our car. We made a little set-up change to find some more stability and we are still trying to find the right compromises. So far, it’s gone pretty smoothly so I hope that will continue tomorrow and we can make more progress.”

Ryo Hirakawa (Driver, car #8):

“It has been quite a busy day. We tried different compounds of tyres, and I think we learned a lot. We still need to analyse in detail, but we did a lot of mileage and that is always positive. We did a couple of qualifying simulations in second practice to help us prepare for tomorrow as well as some longer runs to understand the tyres better. It’s going to be a tough fight as usual, and we still need to finetune the car to maximise performance. I’m looking forward to a good qualifying and a close race.”