Race 2 of the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup at Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours, France has been placed under Red Flag conditions following an incident for the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Dustin Blattner.
Blattner was fending off the #87 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 EVO of Rinat Salikhov for the lead of the Bronze Cup, when the pair twice made contact on the run to the Adelaide Hairpin.
The second piece of contact sent Blattner towards the inside wall, with which he made heavy contact, before continuing at full speed towards the gravel trap. It has been confirmed that Blattner is ‘OK’.
🚨 RED FLAG 🚨
The red flags have been brought out in Race 2 in Magny-Cours following a collision involving #74 and #87
Driver OK ✅#GTWorld pic.twitter.com/cqRAz9Xk0k
— GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS (@GTWorldChEu) August 2, 2026
The incident is currently under investigation.
A messy start to the 60-minute sprint race has featured several incidents, although 41 of the 44 starters were still running when the Red Flag was deployed with 34 minutes and 56 seconds remaining.
Notably, drivers’ championship leader Kelvin van der Linde has retired the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo following contact with the #93 Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R (992.2) of Peter Dempsey.
Nicki Thiim has retained the lead of the race from pole position aboard the #7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo, but the Dane has a 10-second lead looming over over him for starting out of position.
Marvin Kirchhöfer is therefore the effective leader aboard the #59 Garage 59 McLaren GT3 Evo, after passing the #84 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Christopher Haase on the opening lap.
The race is set to resume behind the Safety Car at 16:23 CEST.
Image courtesy of GT World Challenge Europe
