Kevin Magnussen secured seventh place in WEC opener at Imola

Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello secured seventh place in the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship at Imola, where the BMW duo remained in contention for a top result throughout most of the race.

Kevin Magnussen and Raffaele Marciello finished seventh on Sunday and thereby secured world championship points in the opening round of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The pairing had to do without their regular team-mate, Dries Vanthoor, who was competing in the IMSA race at Long Beach, but still delivered a solid performance in front of more than 92,000 spectators.

At Imola, Magnussen also completed his first WEC qualifying session, placing his BMW M Hybrid V8 #15 in a solid eighth position in the 17-car Hypercar field and thereby securing a place in the final Hyperpole session. The Dane started the six-hour race from 10th on the grid and steadily worked his way through the field. After three strong stints, he handed the car over to Raffaele Marciello while running inside the top five, but close competition and an unfortunate tyre choice during a rain shower in the second half of the race cost the duo several positions.

"I think we got close to the maximum out of our race. We probably made the wrong decision on tyres during Marciello’s final stint, which was a bit unfortunate. I think fourth place would have been possible. But considering that we had quite a few technical challenges during the preparations, and that the competition is incredibly close, I still think we come away from the championship opener with a fairly decent result. We secured important points, and now we need to go home and analyse a lot of data so we can improve ahead of Spa," said Kevin Magnussen.

While Magnussen and Marciello finished seventh at Imola, their team-mates in the sister car, René Rast and Robin Frijns, secured fifth place, meaning BMW M Team WRT collected a strong haul of championship points. The next challenge for Kevin Magnussen and the rest of the team is the second round of the FIA World Endurance Championship, which takes place at Spa-Francorchamps on May 9.