Fuoco Seals Victory for Ferrari in Macau Main Race

Antonio Fuoco delivered Ferrari its first FIA GT World Cup triumph with a controlled performance in Sunday’s Main Race in Macau, as Raffaele Marciello emerged from a chaotic opening lap to claim the runner-up spot for BMW.

Starting from pole after his Qualifying Race win on Saturday, Fuoco was never headed over the course of the 16-lap encounter on the Guia Circuit, surviving both the start and the restart after an early safety car period in his No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 296 GT3.

It marks Ferrari’s first FIA GT World Cup victory, with the Italian brand joining Mercedes-AMG, Audi and BMW as winners of the prestigious event.

Most of the action occurred on the opening lap as Marciello immediately moved ahead of Alessio Picariello’s Absolute Porsche at the start, with the Belgian driver spinning into the barriers after what appeared to be slight contact with the BMW through Mandarin.

Marciello then successfully drafted past Yifei Ye’s Ferrari to move up to second as the fast-starting Porsche 911 GT3 R of Ayhancan Guven briefly ran third.

But Guven’s race soon ended in the barriers at Lisboa after the DTM champion appeared to be nudged by his fellow Schumacher CLRT Porsche driver Laurin Heinrich, with Luca Engstler and Dorian Boccolacci both caught out in the ensuing pile-up.

All of that left Heinrich third ahead of the Phantom Global-run Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II of Joel Eriksson and Ye’s Harmony Racing Ferrari as the safety car was called, albeit with Heinrich and Eriksson placed under investigation for the Lap 1 incident.

At the restart on lap 4, Fuoco judged things perfectly as he put himself out of reach of Marciello, building up a gap of 1.8 seconds by the end of that lap.

By the eighth lap, Fuoco had built a margin of three seconds, which further stretched out to more than four seconds before ending up at 3.960 seconds at the finish.

Marciello spent the remainder of the race with his mirrors full of Heinrich’s Porsche, but the straight line pace of the ROWE Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO was enough to keep him just out of range of any attack heading down into Lisboa.

Heinrich completed the provisional podium places ahead of Eriksson in fourth and Ye in fifth, with a recovering Sheldon van der Linde sixth in his WRT BMW.

Laurens Vanthoor ran ahead of van der Linde after the opening lap but misjudged his braking on the run down to Lisboa as he tried to pass Deng Yi’s Ferrari, which allowed both the BMW driver and the Audi of Christopher Haase to sneak ahead.

Haase later followed van der Linde by making a pass on Deng for seventh, with Deng eighth and Vanthoor having to settle for ninth in the surviving Absolute Porsche.

A late crash at Melco for the Absolute Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Edoardo Mortara promoted Benjamin Goethe’s Optimum Motorsport McLaren — which Mortara had earlier passed — back to the final place in the top ten.

RESULTS: Main Race