Raffaele Marciello has consistently been the fastest driver at Magny-Cours. For this reason, the result of the second classification could not be another. ‘Lello’ has achieved pole position for Sunday’s race with the #89 Mercedes of the Akkodis-ASP team after signing a time of 1:35.444 and beating the #88 Mercedes by more than two and a half tenths. The reigning DTM champion, Maximilian Götz, has been in charge of completing the double for the Stuttgart firm and the Akkodis-ASP team. The #32 Audi, after an exit from the track by Dries Vanthoor, will start eighth.
Marciello is one of the fastest drivers in the GT World Challenge Europe in general and in the Sprint Cup in particular, and at Magny-Cours he proved it again. With a time of 1:35.444, ‘Lello’ has conquered the pole of Sunday’s race with 258 thousandths of an advantage over Maximilian Götz. Jules Gounon’s ‘substitute’, the latter’s new champion of the 12 Hours of Bathurst, asserted his status as DTM champion and left his mark with the second fastest time of the session. For his part, Patric Niederhauser finished third in the #25 Audi.
Accompanying the Audi de Saintéloc Racing on the second row of the grid will be the McLaren #188 from Garage 59. The brilliant performance of Dean MacDonald has allowed the British not only to get pole position in the Pro-Am category, but also to finish ahead of riders of the stature of Christopher Mies or Christian Klien. For his part, Ulysse de Pauw finished in seventh place to take pole position in the Silver Cup. A very favorable position for the #53 Ferrari, since the following ‘silver’ GT3 will start in 14th place.
Just behind the #53 will start the #32 Audi of Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts. Although the GT3 of the two-time champions was called to be the main opposition to Raffaele Marciello in the fight for pole, Vanthoor made a mistake and went off track, lightly hitting the protections. Dries managed to return to the pits with the #32 Audi, but also he lost his best lap by causing the only red flag of the session. As a result of this circumstance, the #32 will start in the fourth row.
The red flag caused by Dries Vanthoor left a somewhat strange session development in which the pilots who had the facility to achieve a good first time had a great advantage. Klaus Bachler was perhaps breaking this rule, as the #56 Porsche driver climbed to ninth just as Christopher Haase’s #11 Audi spun. For its part, Valentino Rossi’s #46 Audi will start tenth thanks to the performance of Frédéric Vervisch.
Results classification II GTWC Europe 2022 in Magny-Cours
Photos: GT World Challenge Europe