Mercedes wins the 1000 Km of Paul Ricard, the second seasonal event of the Endurance Cup of the GT World Challenge Europe.
At Le Castellet what seemed like ordinary administration in the middle of the race for the Audi #40 of Tresor Orange 1 turned into the worst nightmare for the Marschall/Drudi/Feller trio, who ran into a problem with the right rear and had to raise the white flag while he was on the run.
During the fourth hour it was the BMW #98 of Rowe Racing that put the so-called ‘arrow’ taking the lead, but an irresistible Raffaele Marciello as usual reassembled once he inherited the wheel of the Mercedes-AMG #88 from Timur Boguslavski, giving together with the Russian and Jules Gounon the triumph to the Akkodis-ASP team with a crazy comeback.
‘Lello’ was the first to stop in the last round of pit stops, but by then he had already pulled away and crossed the finish line alone in front of the #777 Mercedes of AlManar Racing (Stolz/Engel/Schiller), which after a central part of the race with clenched teeth managed to regain the place of honor.
Good fight for third place which finally rewards the Audi #25 of Saintéloc in the hands of Mies/Niederhauser/Gachet, mocking the aforementioned BMW #98 of Rowe Racing (Wittmann/Yelloly/Eng) which had come back from the margins of the Top10.
It was not the race to remember for Ferrari, which after the success at the Nordschleife was hoping for another success from the 296 GT3. The good finish of the #71 AF Corse-Francorchamps Motors (Fuoco/Serra/Rigon) brings the Prancing Horse to the Top 5, while the #51 driven by Rovera/Shwartzman/Nielsen is seventh, with the Reds suffering especially on the straight.
Among them we find the BMW #998 of the young Hesse/Verhagen/Harper (Rowe Racing), good at exploiting the potential of their M4 to recover up to sixth place.
At Team WRT after the withdrawal of the #32 of Weerts/Vanthoor/Van Der Linde there is the excellent comeback from 22nd to 8th place of the #46 of Valentino Rossi/Augusto Farfus/Maxime Martin. The ‘Doctor’ had the double initial stint, in which he first lost a couple of positions with respect to the start, then found a better rhythm in the second hour by handing over the 13th car to his Brazilian colleague; the final was the turn of the Belgian who completed his return to the points zone, with some regrets about how Qualifying went.
#46 Team WRT, BMW M4 GT3: Valentino Rossi, Augusto Farfus, Maxime Martin
Photo by: AG Photo
In the absolute Top10 we also have the winners of the Gold Class: Soulet/Hofer/Baert are great with the Audi #21 of Comtoyou Racing in taking advantage of the bad luck suffered by the Mercedes #57 of Winward Racing to immediately take the lead without ever giving up.
Behind them is the Mercedes #157 of Schumacher/Born/Zug (Winward Racing), overtaking the Audi #9 of the very solid Di Folco/Eteki/Panis (Boutsen VDS) in extremis.
Pulcini/Beretta/Ineichen have a bitter taste, fourth on the Lamborghini #19 of Iron Lynx after a final stop to fix brake problems that all the Huracans suffered during the race.
Moreover, the #63 of their PRO Caldarelli/Bortolotti/Pepper colleagues slipped to the rear after fighting for sixth position due to a puncture on the left rear, losing precious points, as did the #6 of K-Pax Racing (Mitchell/ Mapelli/Perera) was denied the comeback in the Top10 due to other brake problems.
The consolation for Tresor arrives in the Silver Cup class thanks to the success of Lorenzo Patrese, Pietro Delli Guantes and Alex Aka on the Audi #99 with which they dominated the scene.
The Lamborghini #85 driven by GRT (Van Berlo/Schmid/Hites) is second and the Audi #12 driven by Comtoyou Racing (Hutchison/Dejonghe/Hezemans) completes the category podium.
In the Bronze Cup, the McLaren #188 of Garage 59 made a sensational mockery 6′ from the end with Chaves/Ramos/Prette stopping due to a failure on the rear left. Joy therefore for the Mercedes #79 of HRT (Maini/Baud/Haupt), ahead of the Ferrari 488 #52 of Bertolini/J.Machiels/L.Machiels (AF Corse) and the McLaren #93 of Sky Tempesta Racing (Cheever/ Froggatt/Hui).
Finally, the PRO-AM Class offers the only joys of the day to Porsche with the top step occupied by the 911 #24 of the Car Collection driven by Fontana/Jacoma/Leutwiler and the third by the #22 of CLRT (Denoual/Caumes/Boccolacci). Among them we find the Ferrari 488 #38 of ST Racing (Tan/Tutumlu/Miller).
GTWC – 1000 KM of Paul Ricard: Gara
