Good pace and a proper strategy did the trick for the Akkodis-ASP Mercedes during the second round of the FANATEC ESports GT Pro Series at Paul Ricard, with Silver Cup racer Tommaso Mosca commanding the show from lights to flag and Raffaele Marciello coming right behind as the best from the Pro Cup.
The Silver Cup drivers were on the run again to spoil the Pro Cup party, with Tommaso Mosca and Alex Aka sharing the front row in the No. 87 Akkodis-ASP Mercedes and No. 99 Attempto Audi, and they kept the front of the pack unchanged until the race got red flagged due to server issues, which forced it to be restarted from zero.
Mosca kept the lead at the restart, but Aka and Arthur Rougier were bulldozed out of the track by the oncoming field, with the rough treatment also claiming Matteo Cairolli in the first lap. Kelvin van der Linde was keeping his place as the best Pro Cup driver, but Nicklas Nielsen was there for the challenge and passed the South African to put the No. 51 Iron Lynx Ferrari in third overall.
Aka was clocking faster laps than Mosca but it wasn't enough to make a move for the lead, while Raffaele Marciello in the No. 88 Akkodis-ASP Mercedes took the Nielsen-van der Linde battle as an advantage to passed both at once for the Pro Cup lead, leaving them behind to deal for second in class with Juuso Puhakka. When Rougier and Yuki Nemoto were joining the fight, van der Linde pushed out both Rougier and Nielsen at Turn 1, and if once incident wasn't enough, the driver of the No. 32 WRT Audi sent Nemoto to a spin at Mistral, and obviously a drive through penalty for avoidable contacts was handed to van der Line.
Akkodis-ASP worked well during the pit window, which was enough to go around a quicker Alex Aka, with Mosca keeping the lead while Marciello got second overall within 3 seconds behind his team mate. Marciello was getting faster than Mosca, but the once lost advantage was recovered as Marciello settled for second overall as he had the Pro Cup win, leaving Mosca in the No. 87 Akkodis-ASP Mercedes in front to get the checkered flag.
ESports GT Pro - Paul Ricard race results
The No. 66 Attempto Audi leads the Pro Cup standings with 7 points while the No. 95 Beechdean Aston Martin is in second with 6 points. Finishing the Paul Ricard weekend without scoring was a bad hit into Neil Verhagen’s campaign, as the No. 50 ROWE BMW dropped to third with 5 points.
The No. 99 Attempto Audi and the No. 87 Akkodis-ASP Mercedes share the Silver Cup lead with 5 points each, and the No. 90 Madpanda Mercedes is the immediate threat to their lead with 4 points in third.
The ESports GT Pro Series returns to action during the 24 Hours of Spa week, being held in the weekend before the real race weekend.
PHOTO: SRO/Jules Benichou
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