Barcelona – McLaren wins nine years after the No. 96 Porsche became champion

After three hours of effort, it's finally the McLaren No. 58, part of the pole position that won. This is a brief summary that says nothing about what happened between the start and the finish of the final round of the GT World Challenge. Endurance disputed on the Barcelona-Catalonia circuit.

The race changed dramatically with 1 hour and 09 minutes to go when the No. 88 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II crashed into the wall exiting Turn 8. The cause was a contact during a battle with a Lamborghini that caused Rocco Mazzola to lose control. A lengthy Full Course Yellow and then Safety Car period ensued, tightening the field before a final sprint lasting around fifty minutes.

From the restart, the Garage 59 No. 58 McLaren immediately confirmed its superiority by taking off very quickly in the hands of Louis Prette. The Monegasque racer sped to victory, accompanied by his teammates Adam Smalley and Dean MacDonald. This is McLaren's first Endurance Cup victory since Paul Ricard in 2016, more than nine years ago! Furthermore, it is also the first success for a Gold crew in the category.

Porsche beats Mercedes in the GTWC Endurance overall

Even better: it was a Gold double with second place for the #777 BMW M4 GT3 EVO of AlManar Racing by WRT. At the wheel, Jens Klingmann – accompanied by Ben Tuck and Al Faisal Al Zubair – had been overtaken by Raffaele Marciello (#98 BMW of Rowe Racing), but the Swiss driver let him overtake him on the last lap, no doubt aware of having overtaken off the track. Marciello nevertheless took the third step of the podium with Augusto Farfus and Jesse Krohn, who finished as the first Pro crew of the race.

On the other hand, the championship returned to the Porsche Rutronik Racing's No. 96 thanks to an excellent final stint from Swiss driver Patric Niederhauser. The former Audi driver put up a good fight with Harry King (Verstappen.com Racing n°33) to snatch a saving 7th place: it allowed Niederhauser and his teammates Alessio Picariello and Sven Müller to snatch the GTWC Endurance championship title by one point ahead of the crew of the Mercedes No. 48 (Cairoli – Engel – Auer), who also lost the overall championship standings by three points to Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde (BMW No. 32).

GTWC – Barcelona 
The classification of the race