NÜRBURGRING, GERMANY – Al-Manar Racing by Getspeed’s Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Fabian Schiller finished a hard-earned second in the three-hour fourth round of the 2023 Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup on Sunday.
After qualifying third, Engel dropped to fourth in a turn-one melee before recovering, Schiller ran second in stint two, and Stolz challenged for the lead to finish just 1.99 seconds behind the Akkodis ASP Team Mercedes of Raffaele Marciello, Jules Gounon and Timur Boguslavskiy.
The win strengthened Akkodis ASP’s title bid after Rowe Racing’s Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann and Nick Yelloly finished 13th of 17 Pro Cup cars in their BMW M4. The German race winners lead by 18 points heading to Barcelona and unofficially need only a top five. Engel is third in the standings, with Stolz and Schiller provisionally joint fifth.
Practice and qualifying
Marciello, Gounon and Boguslavskiy topped Saturday practice with 1min 55.163sec, 0.042sec ahead of Iron Lynx’s Leonardo Pulcini, Michele Beretta and Rolf Ineichen, with the Al-Manar Mercedes fifth in Pro with 1min 55.727sec. It then topped pre-qualifying with 1min 54.173sec.
In wet qualifying, Engel was sixth in Pro in Q1 (2min 12.699sec), Stolz seventh in Q2 (2min 10.230sec) and Schiller fastest in Q3 (2min 06.179sec) as the track improved. Combined, Marciello took pole ahead of Iron Lynx’s Mirko Bortolotti, Andrea Caldarelli and Jordan Pepper, with the Al-Manar car third.
The race
In drier conditions, Engel fell to fourth after turn-one chaos, behind Marciello, the Rutronik Racing Porsche and Comtoyou Racing’s Audi, driven by Dennis Olsen and Frederic Vervisch respectively in second and third, while Pepper’s Iron Lynx Lamborghini pitted early. Engel later passed Vervisch for third.
Schiller took over in second behind Boguslavskiy and cut the gap to 9.094 seconds after 52 laps and 100 minutes. Stolz kept up the pressure on Gounon in the final stint, closing to under a second for a few laps, before the Frenchman edged away in traffic to win after 92 laps. Ricardo Feller’s Tresor Orange 1 Audi was third, ahead of Patric Niederhauser’s Saintéloc Junior Team Audi and Thomas Preining’s Rutronik Porsche.
The final round takes place in Barcelona on September 29–October 1.