The Macau GT Cup – FIA GT World Cup at the 71st Macau Grand Prix (MGP) had to cope with a wet track at the Guia Circuit yesterday, with Germany’s Maro Engel in a Mercedes winning by just 1.641 seconds, followed by Brazil’s Augusto Farfus Jr in second and South African Sheldon Van Der Linde in third.
The Macau GT Cup was a 16-lap battle, with the pole-sitter Raffaele Marciello from Switzerland, even after five laps under the safety car at the start, upholding a commanding lead, while Belgium’s Dries Vanthoor, at the back of the field, was trailed by Engel and Italy’s Antonio Fuoco, until he was overtaken by Fuoco when getting to lap 8, and then pushed by Engel on St. Francisco Hill, before dropping out of the race.
Climbing into second place, Fuoco tried to snatch the first place from Marciello during the rest of the race until the remaining two laps, when Fuoco who was driving a Ferrari and Marciello in a BMW ran off the track at Lisboa Bend after the latter failed to stop and rear-ended the former. Engel, who was originally in third place, climbed up to the first place after the duo’s crash.
Engel was the first to cross the line, 6.641 seconds ahead of Farfus Jr in second place, but then the committee announced a five-second penalty for Engel, who, consequently, won the race by more than 1 second over Farfus Jr eventually, securing his fourth Macau GT Cup victory.
“In Macau you always need a little bit of luck, and I think it was a little bit of a miracle that we managed with the performance we had this weekend to win the race…so it was very hard, but without a target we made basically the impossible possible,” Engel told the Post after yesterday’s post-race press conference, admitting that Fuoco’s car touching Mariello’s car created a “big” opportunity for him: “Sometimes in Macau you need to believe and you need to keep fighting and opportunities come”.
Speaking during the press conference, Engel pointed out the difficulty of fighting for podium positions: “We didn’t expect [Fuoco and Marciello to go straight on] because even in the dry, to fight for the podium was difficult, so we knew that rain would be our only chance,” and he even said sorry to Vanthoor: “I want to say sorry to Dries [Vanthoor]. It’s unfortunate that we came together, definitely not on purpose. I went for a move, he tried to close [the gap between us], and we came together slightly…”
Due to the soggy weather, even though the race was not delayed, for safety reasons, it took place with a rolling start.
German racer Maro Engel from the Mercedes-AMG Team GMR team holds his trophy after winning yesterday’s Macau GT Cup - FIA GT World Cup. – Photos: Rui Pastorin
Engel racing round the Macau Grand Prix’s Guia Circuit in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 (Evo).
