With the Endurance Cup taking priority in the FANATEC GT World Challenge Europe calendar, it’s already usual that the season in Europe starts in the virtual world rather than in the real one, as the FANATEC ESports GT Pro Series took place at Monza this Saturday (22), with Alexey Nesov carrying on the No. 90 MadPanda Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo to the win, while a dominant Marius Zug in the No. 157 Winward Mercedes got the overall win stripped due to a very late penalty.
While most of the field were settling their differences at the first chicane, Sandy Mitchel had to deal with a considerable drop in the order as he lost the lead to be fourth, with Marius Zug putting the No. 157 Winward Mercedes in front, only to be passed by the No. 90 MadPanda Mercedes of Alexey Nesov while Laurin Heinrich in the No. 96 Rutronik Porsche got closer to the top pack.
The top-3 in the leading pack had the lead in each of the classes, so there was no reason to take risks, meaning that things got pretty stale in front, while Alex Aka was keeping fourth place but dropped due to a drive through penalty, which allowed the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini of Jordan Pepper to lead a Pro Cup pack in chase of Heinrich.
Nesov was one of the first to enter the pits during the window, and the risk of coming back in between the traffic but it could be mitigated later, and issues with the ignition slowed him down a little, putting the No. 90 in third while Zug took the overall lead. Nesov then departed on a quest to get Heinrich, and after a relentless battle, he got second place and started opening the gap to reach the No. 157.
It was exactly in the Pro Cup that the action was still on, as the No. 96 Rutronik Porsche dropped in pace, and with less than 10 minutes to go, Jordan Pepper did the move to take third place overall from Laurin Heinrich.
Marius Zug just had to carry on to the finish, but a 15 second penalty in his total time stripped him of the overall victory, promoting the No. 90 MadPanda Mercedes of Alexey Nesov to the winning place to add to his Silver Cup win, while the No. 157 Winward Mercedes of Zug still captured the Gold Cup win from second overall, while Jordan Pepper put the No. 63 Iron Lynx Lamborghini in third overall to get the Pro Cup win.
Next up for the FANATEC ESports GT Pro Series will be only in June during the Paul Ricard 1000 weekend on the 3rd, coming before the real world race as per usual.
PHOTO: SRO/TWENTY-ONE CREATION, Jules Benichou
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