Championship Leaders Out as Second GruppeM Car Falters

The No. 89 Mercedes-AMG Team GruppeM Racing entry joined its sister car in retirement from the Gulf 12 Hours with less than two hours on the clock, ending the race victory chances of the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli points-leading driver trio.

A water pressure issue caused Raffaele Marciello to head for the GruppeM garage shortly after a restart from the first safety car period — caused by an accident for Kessel Racing’s Murat Cuhadaroglu — with only an hour and 40 minutes completed.

The No. 89 Mercedes-AMG joined its pole-sitting No. 98 teammate machine which had already been taken back to the garage with a broken oil pipe.

Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon and Raffaele Marciello were aiming to share the IGTC drivers’ title by winning the Gulf 12 Hours season finale, but their tumbling out of contention means that only Juncadella can now claim the championship out of the three.

The Spanish driver can only be denied if Luca Stolz and his Al Manar Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG crew win the race at Yas Marina Circuit.

“This was very shocking, I have to say,” Juncadella told race broadcast pit lane reporter Alan Hyde.

“After such a difficult start to the weekend, we managed to turn it around with both cars. The team did a great job. We were standing in the best possible position yesterday.

“We didn’t even make two hours with both cars due to technical issues on both. It’s a bit disappointing on that side.

“For me, it’s still 10 hours of pressure because the championship is in play.”

Describing the No. 89 car’s problem, Gounon said: “Lello [Marciello] replied on the radio that we were losing water pressure.

“In those cars, when you lose water pressure is never a good sign. Unfortunately for the team, they worked really hard since we arrived. [The No. 98] car got crashed [on Friday] and they repaired it the whole night. We had a lot of issues on our car.

“Then we smashed a 1-2 in quali which was amazing. I feel we had a chance today. But I don’t want to complain: our year with Raffaele and Dani was amazing. Dani is my friend. If he’s champion it’s the only time I’m happy to lose.”

Gounon, Marciello and Juncadella won the TotalEnergies 24 Hours of July en route to clinching the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup title.

Heading into the third hour of the Gulf race, Alex Aka led in the No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, however the German driver was still due to make his car’s second pit stop.

The No. 50 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 has been in charge for much of the early stages after it went against the strategic grain and did not pit during the opening stint.

Nicklas Nielsen recently made that car’s second stop, handing over to Alessio Rovera.