Lionspeed GP has scored its second GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup victory of the season in an incident-filled Race 2 at the Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours this afternoon.
Ricardo Feller and Bastian Buus triumphed from fourth on the grid aboard the #80 Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2), cycling to the lead during the pit stop window and going on to win by 2.120 seconds.
The wins moves the 24 Hours of Spa winners up to second in the Sprint Cup drivers’ championship, as the top three in the standings all failed to score major points.
“This one is fully on the team, we just delivered what we had to,” Buus said.
“They got the car back into the state that we know as drivers for the last race of the weekend, the pit crew pulled an amazing pit stop and this is basically the key for the victory.”
It is Buus’ second-ever overall Sprint Cup victory, after Lionspeed’s triumph in Race 2 at Brands Hatch earlier this year, and a seventh win for 2023 champion Feller.
Polesitter Nicki Thiim led the opening stint in the #7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, whilst the #59 Garage 59 McLaren GT3 Evo of Marvin Kirchhöfer passed the #84 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Haase on the run to Turn 1 for second.
Behind, Feller was overtaken by the Gold Cup-leading #111 CSA Racing McLaren GT3 Evo of Arthur Rougier, but the Porsche contracted driver was able to return to fourth in the opening minutes.
Thiim, though, was awarded a 10-second penalty for being out of position at the start, but with Haase struggling for outright pace, the Dane had the opportunity to mitigate as much of this penalty as possible.
The Dane was up to a virtual fourth-place shortly before the pit stop window opened, when a Red Flag was deployed for an accident for the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Dustin Blattner following contact with Rinat Salikhov’s #87 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO.
This reset the race into a 30-minute sprint, which opened with the pit stop window.
Thiim’s penalty, a slow stop for the #59 McLaren and a later pit stop for the #84 Audi enabled Buus to emerge from the pit stop window with a comfortable lead, which he successfully managed to the finish.
The big winner of the pit stop cycle was the #30 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Ignacio Montenegro and Matisse Lismont. As a Silver Cup entry, the car could pit five minutes earlier than the Pro and Gold Cup runners, enabling Lismont to undercut himself from 14th to second, where the Belgian remained until the chequered flag for their fourth Silver Cup win of the season.
And in third, Rutronik Racing earned the first overall GT World Challenge Europe podium for the Lamborghini Temerario GT3. Patric Niederhauser ran sixth in the opening stint, with Luca Engstler emerging from the pit sequence in fourth.
The German then set off in pursuit of the #50 AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Neubauer, making the move into the Adelaide Hairpin with nine minutes to go.
Neubauer held on to fourth for himself and Arthur Leclerc, ahead of a season-best finish of fifth for the #84 Audi of Haase and Simon Reicher.
CSA Racing scored Gold Cup honours in its home race, with Rougier and James Kell finishing sixth overall.
The #59 Mclaren had to settle for seventh after spending the opening half of the race as the favourite to secure victory. A 48-second pit stop, compared to the 37-second time recorded by Lionspeed, proved costly, as Kirchhöfer and Dean Macdonald’s quest for a first podium of 2026 continues.
The Race 1-winning #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing AMG was another car with a slow stop, dropping from ninth to 14th, but Jules Gounon was able to recover to eighth through a mixture of on-track overtakes and post-race penalties for the #51 AF Corse Ferrari and #2 Boutsen VDS Porsche, which were both docked five seconds due to multiple incidents with one another.
The #46 Team WRT BMW climbed up from 20th to finish ninth, with the #51 Ferrari of Matias Zagazeta and Tommaso Mosca extending its Gold Cup championship lead in 10th overall. The #555 CSA Racing McLaren completed the Gold Cup podium in 14th.
The #7 Aston Martin ended up down in 18th overall, after a slow pit stop exaggerated the impact of its 10-second time penalty, whilst another long pit stop hurt the chances of the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG, which finished 19th.
In Silver, the #30 BMW finished over 20 seconds ahead of its closest class rival, the #5 Optimum Motorsport McLaren, with the #21 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin finishing third.
Bronze Cup victory, in 23rd overall, went to the #991 Paradine Competition BMW of Darren Leung and Augusto Farfus, which inherited the lead when the #87 Mercedes-AMG was awarded a 20-second stop-go penalty for the incident between Salikhov and Blattner.
The #222 2 Seas Motorsport Mercedes-AMG climbed from the back of the grid to finish second, ahead of the #55 Dinamic GT Porsche, with the penalty dropping the #87 Mercedes-AMG to eighth.
The #93 Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing Porsche finished second on the road, having led the opening stint before pitting to repair damage, but was awarded a 10-second time penalty for speeding in the pit lane.
“It’s so nice to get back on the top step,” Leung said. “It’s been a long time coming for the team, so I couldn’t be happier.”
Behind the frontrunners, it was a messy race, with an abundance of contact and incidents in the mid-pack.
Amongst the casualties, the championship-leading #32 Team WRT BMW had charged from 42nd on the grid into 22nd, when contact was made as Kelvin van der Linde attempted to pass the #93 Porsche of Peter Dempsey. The damage incurred forced the #32 BMW to retire, and forced Dempsey to pit from the Bronze Cup lead.
van der Linde had already been involved in an incident with the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari of Ben Green at Turn 16, with the 296 GT3 Evo one of several cars to abandon the race during the Red Flag due to the damage sustained. Post-race, the South African was give a five-place grid penalty for the next race he contests due to this incident.
With just three points on the board this weekend, it’s been the lowest-scoring Sprint Cup round featuring two points-scoring races for the #32 WRT entry since 2021.
Despite this, van der Linde and Charles Weerts leave Magny-Cours still at the head of the table, albeit with their advantage slashed to only 2.5 points over Buus/Feller. The top five crews are now covered by just 9.5 points with four races remaining.
The 2026 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup continues at Circuit Zandvoort on 18th to 20th September 2026. Before then, the Endurance Cup heads to the Nürburgring for a three-hour race on 29th to 30th August.
Images courtesy of SRO/JEP
