Raffaele Marciello fended off Dries Vanthoor to FIA GT World Cup Qualification Race success, securing BMW front-row lockout for tomorrow’s title-deciding 16-lap FIA GT World Cup sprint
Vanthoor briefly took the lead once the race went underway. The Belgian aboard his BMW M4 GT3 manged to gets his nose ahead of the sister machine of polesitter Raffaele Marciello, but did not get to enjoy his lead for too long, having gone too deep into the Lisboa corner, thus allowing the reigning FIA GT World Cup winner to resettle into the lead.
The younger of the Vanthoor brothers wasn’t, however, willing to lay his weapons down, demonstrating stellar pace and being the fastest man on track in the closing stages of the race. He went on to reduce his gap to the Italian two-time FIA GT World Cup winner from 1.5s mid-race to 0.7s at the checkered flag. Marciello’s lead never seemed under threat as he remained in control and went on to take the victory, having also claimed the fastest lap of the race on the final tour of the 6.12-kilomtere Guia Circuit.
The opening lap of the 12-lap heat was where there the starting order got reshuffled in multiple places throughout the field. Starting from fourth on the gird, Ferrari’s 24 Hours of Le Mans winner Antonio Fuoco managed to break into the top three at the expense of Mercedes-AMG’s 11-time Macau GP veteran Maro Engel.
Fourth and fifth were further two BMW drivers Augusto Farfus and Sheldon van der Line, with the two finishing where they started.
Seventh came the best of the Porsches and the best of the gold-ranked drivers Alessio Picariello, in the Absolute Racing machine, who managed to get ahead of his compatriot team-mate Laurens Vanthoor on the opening lap.
The top ten was completed by Audi’s Christopher Haase and Macau GP specialist Edoardo Mortara, this time representing Lamborghini for the first time in the event.
The Swiss racer started down in 11th on the grid, having failed to complete his last gasp flying lap in Friday’s qualifying that was cut short following Luca Engstler’s high-speed accident at the exit of the Mandarin corner.
Mortara managed to improve his position in the race, getting ahead of his compatriot Ricardo Feller, who, having started ninth, lost two places on the opening lap.
In the closing stages of the race Feller tried to move back into the top 10, putting immense pressure on Mortara, with the two running nose-to-tail, but the order eventually remained unchanged.
The race saw 22 cars taking the start following yesterday’s qualifying crash of Engstler’ Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo2 that finished the weekend for the young German who was experiencing the Guia Circuit for the first time in GT machinery, having previously competed here in a TCR car.
Tomorrow’s title-deciding 16-lap FIA GT World Cup will be streamed live via the FIA’s official YouTube channel.
