Defending FIA GT World Cup champion Raffaele Marciello remains on course to claim another Main Race victory on the streets of Macau, after controlling today’s 12-lap Qualification Race in his #1 Toro Racing powered by MCG BMW M4 GT3.
It was a near-perfect performance from Marciello, who only briefly lost the lead once at the start. Fellow BMW driver Dries Vanthoor squeezed through around the outside at Mandarin Bend, but the Swiss remained calm and retook the place at the next corner.
Vanthoor ran too deep into Lisboa in his #32 WRT BMW M4, allowing him to pounce and retake the lead up the inside into Turn 4. From there, Marciello held station, keeping Vanthoor at arm’s length all the way to the flag, securing pole position for tomorrow’s Main Race in the process.
The Belgian didn’t allow Marciello to create a comfortable gap and made a late push to try and find a way through. But he couldn’t quite get close enough to attempt a late pass after setting his best lap time on the penultimate tour.
Completing the podium was Ferrari factory driver Antonio Fuoco, who was able to make a move stick at the start in his #83 AF Corse 296 GT3. The Italian pulled off an overtake up the inside on Maro Engel’s GMR Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO and held onto third for the rest of the race.
The 2024 Le Mans winner finished 1.7 seconds off Marciello and six-tenths clear of Engel, who held onto fourth.
Two additional BMW M4s completed the top six. Augusto Farfus narrowly held onto fifth for Team KRC after Sheldon van der Linde in the sister WRT BMW set the race’s fastest lap in pursuit and crossed the line 0.373 back.
Alessio Picariello would finish as the best-placed Porsche driver in seventh for Absolute Racing, while Laurens Vanthoor (also Absolute), Christopher Haase (Phantom Global Racing Audi) and Edoardo Mortara (SJM VSR Theodore Racing Lamborghini) completed the top 10.
After an incident-packed, red-flag-shortened Qualifying session yesterday only 22 of the 23 cars entered for the event took the start. Luca Engstler’s Team Engstler Lamborghini has been withdrawn after the German’s heavy shunt at Mandarin Bend which brought Qualifying to a premature end.
Thankfully, there were no additional casualties in today’s Qualification Race, which ran fully green, setting up tomorrow’s Main Race nicely. It will get underway at 12:25 local time.
Image courtesy of BMW
