Alpine ahead of Ferrari in first practice session at the FIA WEC 6 Hours of Monza

The final race weekend of the 2026 FIA WEC season has begun. The first free practice session at the Monza circuit has now concluded – and Alpine put in a strong performance. Charles Milesi, who is sharing an A424 with Ferdinand Habsburg, clocked a time of 1:45.862 minutes, making him unbeatable. A quick glance at the lap times makes it clear that the track was wet during practice. As a result, even faster times are to be expected as the race weekend progresses.

Due to the difficult conditions, there were also several red flags during the one-and-a-half-hour session following incidents on the track. With a gap of 0.401 seconds, second place in the session went to the Ferrari 499P driven by Philip Hanson, Robert Kubica and Yifei Ye, with Ye setting the trio’s fastest time of 1:46.263 minutes. The car is the yellow Ferrari fielded privately by AF Corse.

The best works Ferrari finished fifth in the first free practice session. James Calado, Antonio Giovinazzi and Alessandro Pier Guidi were 0.695 seconds behind the leading Alpine. Third and fourth places were taken by another Alpine and an Aston Martin. Both cars had actually set exactly the same time of 1:46.453 minutes.

However, as the Alpine driven by Jules Gounon and Victor Martins had set the time earlier in the session, it was awarded third place. This left fourth place for the Aston Martin Valkyrie driven by Tom Gamble and Harry Tincknell. In the LMGT3 class, the fastest time of 1:57.575 minutes went to the McLaren 720S LMGT3 Evo driven by Antares Au, Tom Fleming and Marvin Kirchhöfer. The second free practice session will follow immediately on Friday afternoon at Monza.

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