Farfus Dominates Macau Qualifying Race

Photo: BMW

Augusto Farfus has claimed a dominant win in Saturday’s Qualifying Race in Macau, putting BMW Team Schnitzer in prime position for the FIA GT World Cup.

The Brazilian took his No. 42 BMW M6 GT3 to a 3.812-second win over pole-sitter Raffaele Marciello, who lost the lead to Farfus on the opening lap.

It came just moments before the race’s only safety car period, when contact between Edoardo Mortara and Laurens Vanthoor sent the No. 911 Manthey Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R hard into the barriers at Mandarin.

Farfus pulled away from Marciello on the restart and extended the gap in the remainder of the 12-lap race.

Maro Engel completed the podium in third in the No. 888 GruppeM Mercedes, ahead of Mortara, who remains under investigation for the contact with Vanthoor.

The No. 912 Manthey Porsche of Earl Bamber completed the top-five, with Robin Frijns the best-placed Audi R8 LMS in sixth.

Christopher Haase was seventh, ahead of fellow Macau rookies Dries Vanthoor and Mathieu Jaminet in eighth and ninth, respectively.

The No. 18 KCMG Nissan GT-R NISMO GT3 of Alexandre Imperatori completed the top-ten, with a pre-race Balance of Performance break to the Japanese-built cars not appearing to help its performance deficit.

Imperatori’s teammate Tsugio Matsuda failed to get off the line on the formation lap, with smoke billowing from the No. 23 Nissan.

The FIA GT World Cup-deciding 18-lap Main Race is set for Sunday at 12:25 p.m. local time.

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John