Team WRT captured its 15th win at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli since 2016 under the floodlights this evening in the third race of the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup season, but not with its #46 BMW M4 GT3 Evo that started on pole.
An incident at the start, caused by contact between the front-row-sitting cars and the championship-leading #80 Lionspeed Porsche, opened the door for the sister #32 BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde to power to the front and win from fourth on the grid.
Pole-sitter Valentino Rossi’s dreams of another home win in WRT’s #46 M4 instantly turned into a nightmare as the race began. He and Max Hesse would finish down in sixth after playing a part in the incident as the lights went green that dropped the #46 WRT BMW to fourth, and serving a 10-second pit stop penalty for a jump start, which forced Hesse to make multiple bold moves in the second half of the race to salvage P6.
The chaotic start caused a Lap 1 Safety Car. Rossi’s #46 BMW and Andrea Frassineti’s #66 Tresor Attempto Silver Cup Audi, who both made a poor start, turned in together defensively, sandwiching and touching Riccardo Feller’s #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche. It sent the Audi across the track and into the #3 Verstappen Racing AMG, which had taken avoiding action on the driver’s right.
Daniel Juncadella in the #3 was the innocent victim in the incident, getting wiped out by the out-of-control Audi, which would become an on-the-spot retirement along with the R8 due to the damage. Thankfully, Juncadella, who was turned around in the middle of the track in front of almost the entire field, wasn’t collected. Somehow, the other 41 cars in the race managed to make it through the opening lap unscathed.
“It (the penalty) was because I was a little too much on the right side. After the start it was the mistake for the penalty. I was lucky I stayed straight after the contact. It’s a shame. Feller started better than me, touched me on the rear and started the crash,” Rossi later explained.
The collision did, however, shuffle the order at the front, with Rossi dropping to fourth and Charles Weerts in the sister #32 Pro class WRT BMW inheriting the lead ahead of two Bronze Cup AMGs: the #87 Winward example of Marvin Dienst and #12 GetSpeed machine of Fabian Schiller.
With it being such a tough circuit to overtake on, there wasn’t much movement at the sharp end of the field before the round of stops. When everyone had pitted, and the Bronze Cup cars had served their mandatory 80-second pit stop time and dropped down the order, van der Linde would hold a comfortable lead in the #32 BMW, which he would retain for the remainder of the hour-long sprint.
The race eventually finished under Full Course Yellow, due to the race’s only other incident with under five minutes remaining, when the #555 Gold Cup CSA Racing McLaren appeared to lose its left-rear wheel and ended up stranded off-track with Romain Andriolo aboard. The caution period allowed the South African to cruise to the line unchallenged by the #80 Lionspeed Porsche, which scored an impressive second place after a strong run from Feller and Bastian Buus.
“We’re really happy to put everything together and benefit from a bit of luck. I’m happy it worked out for us and that Kelvin brought the car home,” Weerts said after clinching his 19th Sprint Cup win.
Van der Linde added: “It feels particularly good because we’ve had a tough start to the season. We hope to turn things around now. Hopefully we can do the same again tomorrow.”
Maro Engel in the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG pushed extremely hard to nab second place from Buus before the FCY, but couldn’t find a way through as the race transitioned to full darkness.
Ben Green in the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari would take fourth, finishing just ahead of the Gold Cup class-winning #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8, driven by Alex Aka at the end.
Max Hesse would follow in the #46 WRT BMW, crossing the line up the road from the #51 AF Corse Ferrari of Matias Zagazeta, which took second in Gold. The winning car in the Silver Cup, the #30 WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Matisse Lismont and Ignacio Montenegro, was classified 11th and added more silverware to WRT’s haul.
The Bronze Cup class, present in the Sprint Cup for the first time this season, was won by the #12 GetSpeed Team Dubai Mercedes-AMG of Fabian Schiller and Gabriel Rindone.
The duo benefitted from poor luck striking the #87 AMG from Winward Racing, which ran first in class and second overall after the Lap 1 incident. It lost the class lead when Rinat Salikhov lost all power and was forced to reset the car shortly after climbing in.
The top four in Bronze crossed the line close together, occupying 22nd to 25th overall. Salikhov managed to claim second in class, ahead of the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari. The #991 Paradine Competition BMW, which started eighth in class, gained four places in the opening half-hour when Augusto Farfus was strapped in and finished fourth with Darren Leung behind the wheel.
Action resumes tomorrow with qualifying for Race 2 at 10:05 local time.
Image courtesy of WRT
