In what was the last event of Mr. Schnitzer Motorsport, Charly Lamm, doing the calls on the pitlane, he had a lot of reasons to smile, as his long-time driver Augusto Farfus was the definition of a collected and dominant driver during the FIA GT World Cup, not putting a wheel wrong and winning the qualifying and main races at the tight Macau street circuit.
In a bid to find a way for himself at the start, Edoardo Mortara found himself having to deal with the movements of Earl Bamber, and this led to a contact with Laurens Vanthoor, which sent his Porsche to a spin and eventually a side crash at Mandarim, which caused the only yellow flag period of the race, which didn’t take long. Vanthoor’s Porsche became damaged beyond repair on site due to the crash, and was ruled out of the FIA GT World Cup weekend because of this.
Once the green flag appeared again, Augusto Farfus found himself having the Mercedes trio chasing him, though their paces couldn’t reach his BMW M6 GT3, and with the Brazilian opening the gap more and more, the Mercedes trio settled for what they had, as Earl Bamber was behind them and ready to take advantage of any gaps appearing for him. The four way battle for second made things easier for Farfus, who just had to keep his drive clean and precise to take the checkered flag.
As for the main race, Farfus shut the door on Marciello’s face and held the lead, leaving the Italian along with his GruppeM team mates in second, third and fourth, and after the first lap the BMW M6 GT3 showed its dominant pace again, opening the gap immediately, though Marciello and Maro Engel were still in the chase while Edoardo Mortara lost track of the leading pack.
Truth is that after some laps, only Marciello was able to put up a fight to Farfus, taking advantage in the twisty half of the circuit while the Brazilian was pulling away at the section that goes from Fisherman’s to Mandarim. Things were even between the two until Marciello missed the braking point going to Lisboa bend, using enough skill to avoid a race ending shunt in the barriers, though it was a car left to fight for the lead for GruppeM.
The odds were against Farfus from halfway to the end, with his pace being slightly slower than Engel, Mortara and even Earl Bamber, with all three being at the back wing of the Schnitzer BMW, but demonstrating control of the situation, Farfus took advantage into Engel’s slight mistake at the Melco hairpin and dominated the race until the checkered flag and a well deserved victory.
In interview to Alexandra Legouix right after the race, Farfus mentioned that his tires weren’t working on Sunday as they were on Saturday, so he drove the whole Main Race on the limit and even clipped some of the armco in the process, but the car was great for him. This was his third Macau win counting the WTCC ones he has in the records, and also this Farfus and BMW’s first win in the GT World Cup, as well in the entire GT history at Macau.
PHOTO: BMW Motorsport
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