PAUL RICARD, FRANCE – Al-Manar Racing by Getspeed’s Maro Engel, Luca Stolz and Fabian Schiller finished second overall in the six-hour Paul Ricard round of the Fanatec GT World Challenge powered by AWS Endurance Cup on Saturday evening.
The No.777 Mercedes ran third for the first 90 minutes behind the Tresor Orange 1 Audi and the pole-sitting AKKODIS ASP Team Mercedes of Raffaele Marciello, Timur Boguslavskiy and Jules Gounon. The order held for two and a half hours before Rowe Racing’s Philipp Eng, Marco Wittmann and Nick Yelloly moved ahead in their BMW M4 GT3 around three and a half hours, with the Al-Manar car third.
With 90 minutes left the Saintéloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT3 passed the Mercedes, but Al-Manar Racing fought back in the final stint to regain second, with the top nine cars on the same lap. Marciello held off Stolz’s late challenge to win for AKKODIS ASP.
Practice and qualifying
The all-German trio were fastest in free practice with 1min 54.965sec, 0.017sec ahead of the AKKODIS ASP Mercedes. Marciello, Boguslavskiy and Gounon won Q1 with 1min 53.745sec, with the Al-Manar car third behind an AF Corse Francorchamps Motors Ferrari 296 GT3. It was second in Pro Cup in Q2 behind the other AF Corse Ferrari and second again in Q3, lining up second behind AKKODIS ASP and ahead of the two Ferraris.
At the Monza opener in April, the crew qualified eighth in Pro Cup and ran as high as second after a superb opening stint by Engel, before technical problems in the middle stint dropped them to 15th in Pro Cup; Rowe Racing took pole and victory. The next round is the 75th CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa on June 29–July 2.