Feller, Drudi Win to Set Up Sprint Title Showdown

Ricardo Feller and Mattia Drudi took the points lead in the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup drivers’ standings after converting pole position to victory in the penultimate race of the season at Zandvoort.

Drudi took the No. 40 Tresor Orange 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II across the line with a lead of 1.020 seconds over the No. 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Thierry Vermeulen and Albert Costa.

The Italian denied Vermeulen victory on home soil with a late overtake in an incident-filled race that started with points leader Raffaele Marciello skating through the gravel at Turn 10 on the opening lap.

After starting from third, a strong start saw Marciello’s No. 88 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo leap up to second before challenging Feller, only to slide off the road after losing grip across a damp patch while trying to pass the Audi around the outside.

Marciello dropped to 15th before the emergence of an early safety car and then charged back up into the top ten before the pit window opened.

Out front, a faster pit stop allowed Emil Frey Racing’s No. 69 Ferrari to rejoin in the lead ahead of Drudi and the No. 25 Sainteloc Racing Audi of Erwan Bastard, while Akkodis ASP managed to vault up fourth place in the pits when Timur Boguslavskiy took over from Marciello.

A second safety car, caused when Patryk Krupinski became stranded in the gravel aboard the No. 112 JP Motorsport McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, compressed the field.

It also took out Christian Engelhart’s Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R when the German was hit from behind by Alberto di Folco when the initial Full Course Yellow was called.

At the restart, Boguslavskiy was swamped by the No. 44 CLRT Porsche of Ayhancan Guven and Team WRT’s Maxime Martin, with the latter subsequently passing both Guven and Bastard to move into third place.

Moments later, the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG regained fourth place when Bastard and Guven made contact at the top of Scheivlak, pitching the No. 25 Audi into a high-speed spin through the gravel, eventually leading to its retirement.

With four minutes remaining, Drudi moved the No. 40 Audi back into the lead of the race by overtaking Vermeulen around the outside through the Tarzanbocht and into the Gerlachbocht, keeping the Dutchman at bay to claim the duo’s third win of the season.

Vermeulen and Costa finished second, with the No. 46 BMW M4 GT3 of Martin and Valentino Rossi completing the podium.

Drudi and Feller’s victory, combined with a fourth-place finish for Boguslavskiy and Marciello, means the No. 40 Audi now leads the points standings with 93 points.

The No. 88 Mercedes sits in second with 90.5 points ahead of Sunday’s finale, while Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts’ 73 points mean they are no longer in contention for a fourth consecutive Sprint Cup title.

Nicolas Baert and Frederic Vervisch rounded out the top five aboard the No. 12 Comtoyou Racing Audi, with Vanthoor and Weerts sixth at the flag.

Love Moves Into Silver Cup Lead with Class Win

Jordan Love moved ahead of Tresor Attempto Racing’s Alex Aka and Lorenzo Patrese in the Silver Cup standings by taking a class victory.

Love and co-driver Frank Bird, sharing the No. 77 Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG, won their class by finishing seventh overall while Aka and Patrese finished 14th overall and second in class.

The Australian driver now sits ahead of the Tresor Attempto duo by 2.5 points.

A post-race penalty for Aurelien Panis and Alberto di Folco, meanwhile, brought the points gap in Bronze Cup down to a single point.

The No. 9 Boutsen VDS Audi was initially classified as winners after a five-second penalty for the No. 30 Team WRT BMW of Calan Williams and Niklas Kruetten.

However, Panis and Di Folco later received a ten-second penalty of their own for the contact with Dinamic GT’s Christian Engelhart. It dropped the No. 9 car to fourth, promoting stablemates Cesar Gazeau and Adam Eteki to the class win.

Panis and Di Folco now hold a 1,5-point advantage over Williams and Kruetten with one race remaining.

The final Sprint Cup round of the season takes place Sunday at 2 p.m. CEST (8 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Race 1