Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts dynamite the competition at Magny-Cours

The champions showed their muscles. Titled in GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup last year, Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts impressed this Saturday night in Niverne, winning the first round of the 2021 campaign.

For this, the pilots of theAudi R8 LMS GT3 Evo n°32 from the WRT team recited a perfect score, after Weerts' pole earlier in the day. Well off to the green light, the son of Yves Weerts, one of the founders of the team led by Vincent Vosse, remains at the forefront taking in his wake the two Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo – Emil Frey Racing of Ricardo Feller and Arthur Rougier.

The first relay saw Weerts and Feller exchange the best times without any attack being made by the Swiss on the Belgian, before the race was neutralized a little over 35′ from the finish, following the Franck Bird (Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo n°31 – Team WRT) went off the track.

Enough to push back the window for driver changes even further, but which does not lead to the safety car coming into action. On the restart 32′ from the end, Weerts is still ahead of Feller and Rougier for the top three.

The Belgian leader performs a very fast restart lap, and continues his effort, while the two Lamborghinis – Emil Frey Racing stop immediately. We had to wait until the 29th minute of the race to see Weerts stop in the pit lane, to give way to Dries Vanthoor.

From then on, one of the fastest drivers on the field will endeavor to maintain his lead, which has gone from more than 10″ after the stops, to 6″ under the checkerboard, but more than enough to get ahead of Albert Costa and Alex Fontana, who offer a double podium to Emil Frey Racing, even if the pit stop of the No. 14 remains under investigation.

Disappointment for Maro Engel and Lucas Stolz (Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo n°6 – Toksport WRT), counting among the favorites, Engel losing a wheel less than 10′ from the finish, and offering fourth place to the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo n°90 – Madpanda Motorsport of Perez Companc – Breukers and fifth to the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo n°88 – AKKA-ASP of Marciello – Boguslavskiy.

In the Silver Cup, Alex Fontana and Arthur Rougier won while Andrea Bertolini and Louis Machiels (Ferrari 488 GT3 n°52 – AF Corse) won in Pro-Am. Note that the two Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo – Saintéloc Racing did not see the finish.

Qualifying 2 will begin tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. before the second race scheduled for 14:40 p.m.