Raffaele Marciello achieves yet another success in the GT World Challenge Europe by winning the second stage of the Endurance Cup at Paul Ricard.
The French 1000 km seemed like a formality for the Akkodis-ASP team, which in all the practice sessions had shown good competitiveness with the #88 Mercedes-AMG that the Swiss shared with Jules Gounon and Timur Boguslavskiy.
At the start, Gounon kept the lead, but already during the second hour it became evident that the Audis had a better pace, while the BMWs were making a comeback.
The Frenchman handed over the wheel to Boguslavskiy for the central two hours of the six scheduled races and here, although his rivals had come on overwhelmingly, it must be said that the Russian made no mistakes and defended himself very well, managing to keep vying for the podium, albeit virtually lost at the time, also dropping down to fifth.
#88 Akkodis-ASP, Mercedes-AMG GT3: Raffaele Marciello, Timur Boguslavsky, Jules Gounon
Photo by: AG Photo
With the KO of the Audi of Tresor Orange 1, the fight was concentrated between the BMW of Rowe Racing, the Audi of Saintéloc and the Mercedes of AlManar and Akkodis-ASP; when Marciello got on board the Stella car he immediately set a series of very fast laps, to then overtake those in front of him with his usual grit and malice (ask Luca Stolz, specifically).
Once back in command, ‘Lello’ in the last part only had to manage the situation without major worries, going on to take the first place of the season in the SRO Motorsports Group endurance series.
“Actually we were flying! – admits Marciello beaming at the finish – The car was excellent, we suffered a little more with tire wear going on the dirt, in fact in the second part of the stint I was sliding a bit too much”.
“But luckily the car was fantastic and we managed to come back. We’ve been fast all weekend, so it’s a good win.”
#88 Akkodis-ASP, Mercedes-AMG GT3: Raffaele Marciello, Timur Boguslavsky, Jules Gounon
Photo by: SRO
Gounon is also smiling, as he watched his team-mates from the pits after the initial part: “The team did a great job to give us a great car, we had slipped to fifth place but then we recovered thanks also to Timur’s excellent performance in the central part “.
“I’m happy for the one-two from Mercedes, I think it’s the best car at the moment, it’s been winning for seven years, so thanks to them.”
Boguslavskiy also deserves applause, certainly the least ‘expected’ of the three, but capable of a solid performance: “In my stint I encountered some traffic and I found myself battling with my rivals, but the main objective was don’t go beyond the track-limits too many times and stay out of trouble. I’d say we did a great job as always using a nice set-up.”
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