Keeping the pace that was showed on Friday and Saturday, Raffaele Marciello had a dominant run on Sunday to win the Main Race of the FIA GT World Cup, with the No. 48 Team Landgraf Mercedes AMG GT3 Evo being barely scratched, as it always had a comfortable distance to the opposition at the streets of Macau.
The Mercedes dominated front row prevailed with some door rubbing from Marciello, Maro Engel and others behind them. Different from yesterday, Edoardo Mortara was in a pinch in third place as Sheldon van der Linde had more pace and wasn’t afraid of showing it to go to third.
While most of the drivers behind like Daniel Serra and Sheldon van der Linde were clocking better laps than Marciello, he was still holding the lead, and so it was kept when the Safety Car was called due to Weian Chen meeting the barrier at Lisboa.
The restart with 8 laps to go had Marciello opening a huge gap for Macau standards as Engel’s car slowed down with problems, allowing Mortara to go to second and bringing van der Linde along with him. The BMW M4 GT3 had the speed and balance to pass at Mandarim and Lisboa, but Mortara was firm in his position defense, which also brought Augusto Farfus to the fight, but with van der Linde strangely pulling to the pits, Farfus was the one in third and responsible to pester Mortara.
Despite the best efforts from Farfus, the gap to Mortara never came down, and with Marciello being another mile ahead, the No. 48 Landgraf Mercedes had no things in the way to be brought home, in what was the second win for Marciello and back to back ones considering only the FIA GT World Cup editions.
FIA GT World Cup - Main Race results
Under the FIA GT World Cup title, Marciello holds the most titles as his second win seals his history with Mercedes, but in terms of overall stats of the Macau GT Cup, Marciello is still behind the four time winner Mortara and triple winner Engel while also being along with Darryl O’Young and Keita Sawa as double champions in Macau.
Curiously, Marciello also breaks the tradition of a different winners in the FIA GT World Cup, becoming not only the first double champion under the FIA title but also the first back to back champion despite a four year hiatus. The Swiss also keeps Mercedes streak at Macau in both the GT World Cup and the overall Macau GT Cup history, with the last non-Mercedes win dating back from 2018 with Augusto Farfus, when BMW’s flagship GT3 was still the M6 model and the Mercedes AMG GT3 model was still the original one.
PHOTO: Macau Grand Prix
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