Marciello keeps Vanthoor at bay to FIA GT World Cup Qualification Race success, securing pole for Sunday’s title-decider

Raffaele Marciello fended off Dries Vanthoor to FIA GT World Cup Qualification Race success, securing BMW front-row lockout for tomorrow’s title-deciding 16-lap FIA GT World Cup sprint

Vanthoor briefly took the lead once the race went underway. The Belgian aboard his BMW M4 GT3 manged to gets his nose ahead of the sister machine of polesitter Raffaele Marciello, but did not get to enjoy his lead for too long, having gone too deep into the Lisboa corner, thus allowing the reigning FIA GT World Cup winner Marciello to resettle into the lad.

The younger of the Vanthoor brothers wasn’t, however, willing to lay his weapons down, demonstrating stellar pace and being the fastest man on track in the closing stages of the race. He went on to reduce his gap to Marciello from 1.5s mid-race to 0.7s at the checkered flag, but the Italian remained in control and went on to win the race.

The opening lap of the 12-lap heat was where there the starting order got reshuffled in multiple places throughout the field. Starting from fourth on the gird, Ferrari’s Antonio Fuoco managed to break into the top three at the expense of Mercedes-AMG’s 11-time Macau GP veteran Maro Engel.

more to follow…