FIA GT World Cup – Marciello holds off Porsches in qualifying race

Raffaele marciello won the qualifying race of the FIA GT World Cup Macau, en devançant les deux Porsche 911 GT3 R – ROWE Racing d’Earl Bamber et Laurens Vanthoor.

The Italian of Mercedes -AMG – GruppeM Racing had mastered a start which saw as its first victim Dries Vanthoor (Audi R8 LMS GT3 – Audi Sport Team WRT), who came into contact with the barriers outside the Mandarin.

With Audi injured at the left rear, the Belgian stopped in the Lisboa corner (a maneuver which will subsequently be placed under investigation), while the rest of the grid continued on its way. On the same first lap, Chen Weian (Audi R8 LMS GT3 – Audi Sport Team Asia TRST) made a mistake but was finally able to restart, before the safety car was deployed.

Mercedes is losing its feathers

The second major incident occurred at the start one lap after the restart with nine laps to go, when Maro Engel (Mercedes-AMG GT3 – GruppeM Racing) tried to overtake Kelvin van der Linde (Audi R8 LMS GT3 – Audi Sport Team Rutronik) before Lisbon.

The German lightly touches the South African's car and embraces the barriers before violently colliding with Edoardo Mortara (Mercedes-AMG GT3 – Craft-Bamboo Racing), the very unintentional victim of an incident which will be placed under investigation by the stewards. Kelvin van der Linde, for his part, was forced to return to the pits.

With four laps remaining, Raffaele Marciello once again leads the field at the restart, a moment chosen by 2018 winner Augusto Farfus (BMW M6 GT3 – Team Schnitzer) to overtake Christopher Haase (Audi R8 LMS GT3 – Audi Sport Team Phoenix) for fourth place.

In the lead, Marciello resisted the two Porsches of Bamber and Vanthoor until the end, the latter regularly losing a few meters at the exit of the hairpin against the leader's Mercedes, who won and took his revenge on 2018 where he had was beaten in the qualifying race by Augusto Farfus.

The Brazilian finished 4th after starting from 12th place and ahead of the first Audi R8 LMS GT3 of Christopher Haase. Alexandre Imperatori (Porsche 911 GT3 R – Absolute Racing) finished 6th ahead of Charles Weerts (Audi R8 LMS GT3 – Audi Sport Team WRT) and Kévin Estre (Porsche 911 GT3 R – Absolute Racing), who started last after an engine change.

Note that the start of the event was delayed by several minutes on schedule, due to a problem with the lights ordering the start.

#GTWorldCup – Start of qualifying race is delayed due to an issue with the starting lights #Macao pic.twitter.com/ZKyhbCYHVT

— Porsche Motorsport (@PorscheRaces) November 16, 2019

Ranking to come