Heartbreak in the final hour at Imola

The opening round of the 2026 FIA World Endurance Championship at Imola served as a reminder that it isn’t over until the chequered flag has been waved. After five and a half hours of incredible racing, which saw the #10 McLaren of Antares Au, Tom Fleming and Marvin Kirchhöfer lead the LMGT3 field from pole position, an alternator issue put paid to victory in the final 30 minutes, leaving the #10 to finish in 13^th place.

Alexander West, Benji Goethe and Finn Gehrsitz all put in strong drives in the sister #58 McLaren, hauling the car up from its 16^thplace grid position to seventh at the flag.

After talking a brilliant pole position on Saturday and then making arguably the move of the race for the lead, Tom Fleming won the Goodyear Wingfoot Award, presented to the driver of the race.

As debuts go, the race result was tough to take for the team but Garage 59 proved today that it is up for the challenges of the FIA World Endurance Championship and is ready to fight on at Spa in three weeks’ time.

Final positions:

#58 – 7^th

#10 – 13^th

Benjamin Goethe | #58 McLaren GT3 EVO

Overall, it was a pretty good race for us in the #58. Going from P16 to P7 is a positive result. The car had good pace and I think we all did a good job. Unfortunately, Qualifying didn’t go our way yesterday but we showed that we could come back through the field.

I think we had the potential to finish a couple of places above where we did but in the end that’s how the strategy played out. I think it’s a positive result for us to take us into Spa.

Thomas Fleming | #10 McLaren GT3 EVO

After the third round of pit stops, I got in the car and made quick work of the BMW in front, and then it looked like the Corvette, the 33, tried to undercut us by taking less tyres than we did. So it was then a battle to firstly get onto the back of him before I could have a go at passing him. Eventually, going through Variante Alta, I managed to set up the move for the back straight and got the inside line that I wanted.

The rest of the stint was really quite tense because of the changing conditions. The track was generally dry but you didn't know which part of the circuit would remain dry at any given point. What happened at the end was gutting, especially as my team mates and the entire team had done such an amazing job until this point. It would have been great to come away from this round with some good points but unfortunately, racing is quite a cruel mistress. Having said that, I think everybody here can be extremely proud of what they've done today.