Raffaele Marciello of Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing prevailed over Porsche drivers Laurens Vanthoor and Earl Bamber for the entirety of the Macau Grand Prix to win the prestigious FIA GT World Cup competition.
The event was held at the Macau Grand Prix.
Vanthoor got the better of his ROWE Racing teammate Bamber off the line, allowing Marciello to get a good start in his AMG GT3 machine. Marciello made a clean getaway.
Vanthoor made every effort to pass Marciello, but the Mercedes driver remained strong in the opening portion of the race, until a safety car came out and pulled everyone back into the game.
Kevin Estre, who was running in sixth place, lost control of his Porsche 911 GT3 R as he was going through the extremely swift Mandarin corner and made heavy contact with the barrier, prompting the race officials to call for the safety car.
After the disabled Porsche driven by Estre was removed from the course, the race was able to continue, and the tension quickly resumed where it had left off nearly immediately.
Augusto Farfus, the reigning champion, had a fantastic restart in the BMW Team Schnitzer M6 GT3 and blew by Earl Bamber, who was moving more slowly than usual, on the long run to Lisboa.
However, Bamber moved up to second place almost quickly as a result of Vanthoor’s mistake at Lisboa, which caused Farfus to be held up in the process.
Now it was Bamber’s turn to target the race leader, Marciello, as he started closing the gap on the Mercedes that was in front of him.
At one point, Bamber was lapping over six tenths faster than everyone else, but then he made a minor error in the mountain part, and he lost his wing mirror after making contact with the wall.
Bamber was not deterred by the setback, and he regrouped himself and raced again as the race eventually came down to a battle between him and Marciello in the final lap.
Bamber’s Porsche made little touch with the rear quarter of Marciello’s Mercedes as the Italian young gun went steady around Melco, the legendary slow hairpin on the Guia street circuit. Marciello’s Mercedes was in second place after the race.
It wasn’t enough to get by Marciello, so he held on, and Bamber slowed down to let his teammate Vanthoor re-pass after the two of them had agreed to let each other have a shot at getting by the driver who ended up winning the race. Marciello held on, and Vanthoor ended up winning the race.
After Mercedes regained the title of FIA GT World Cup champion, which it had lost to BMW in 2018, jubilant celebrations ensued as a natural consequence of the victory.
Raffaele Marciello is quoted as having commented, “I would want to thank GruppeM Racing for the incredible car, as well as Mercedes AMG.” Because Porsche came so close to winning throughout the entire weekend, I am overjoyed that we were finally victorious. Macau is always Macau, and it’s incredibly special to get it all perfect, and eventually I was able to do that. I have come really close to winning this race on multiple occasions, including in Formula 3 when I was on pole position and in GT the previous year. To win this implies that people may look at me and consider me to be among the finest, and that alone is an incredible experience.
“Pre-race we had a meeting and we determined a Porsche had to win, and it doesn’t matter which one,” Laurens Vanthoor remarked. I got off to a better start than Earl, and throughout the first part of the race, I was following Raffaele.
We were moving at a really strong pace, but at one point I made a mistake, and we decided that we would also allow Earl have a shot at winning the race. I attempted to get by him both at the beginning of the race and again when it was restarted. I am quite familiar with Earl because he has been my teammate for the entire year. If there is one person who can close a gap, it is Earl! Therefore, it was not our day to give him a shot, but it was still worthwhile to do so.
Earl Bamber stated that he was observing the action behind him since Laurens had a better start than he did. As a result, we were racing third. During the restart caused by the safety car, the BMW got a jump on me at Lisboa; however, they all made a mistake at the same time; I’m not really sure what he did down there, but I was able to slip back up the inside.
It was very kind of Laurens to trade with me and to give me the opportunity. We had a decent vehicle, but our speed was wasted in the wrong competitions. I engaged in as many activities as I could. On the final lap, I gave it my best shot to close the gap in each of the final three turns. Raffaele had an outstanding performance in the race, and he has been flawless over the entire weekend, so our congratulations go out to him.
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