Winward Mercedes Takes Lights-to-Flag Race 2 Win

Lucas Auer and Maro Engel converted pole position to victory in a dominant display during Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup Race 2 at Brands Hatch.

The Winward Racing duo beat the No. 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 by 2.563 seconds during Sunday’s second of two 60-minute contests at the British circuit.

Much of the groundwork for Winward’s first overall win in Sprint Cup competition was laid by Auer, who started the No. 48 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo from pole and maintained first place at the start.

From there, the Austrian quickly built up a comfortable gap back to the No. 9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG of fellow factory ace Jules Gounon.

Auer stretched his lead to as much as six seconds before pitting to hand over to Engel, who controlled the gap to take Mercedes-AMG’s first Sprint Cup win since Valencia last year.

Auer, meanwhile, celebrated his first win in any SRO Motorsports Group-organized series while Engel returned to the top step in the sprint series for the first time since he and Luca Stolz swept the Valencia finale for Toksport WRT in 2021.

Altoe and Thierry Vermeulen finished second ahead of Gounon and Maximilian Goetz, who ran in second in the first half of the race before a slower pitstop dropped them back.

The third-placed finish still marks a significant improvement for the No. 9 crew, who were prevented from taking the start in Race 1 as a result of engine issues.

Alex Aka and Ricardo Feller finished fourth for Tresor Attempto Racing, with Ben Green and Konsta Lappalainen completing the top five in the No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari.

Benjamin Goethe and Tom Gamble followed up their fourth place in Race 1 with sixth in Race 2, while the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 fought from tenth on the grid to finish seventh.

Dries Vanthoor sealed seventh in the car he shares with Charles Weerts by passing stablemate Valentino Rossi at Surtees with ten minutes to go.

Just a few minutes later, Rossi ran off track and through the gravel in the No. 46 BMW, complaining of a steering issue that ultimately resulted in retirement.

Patric Niederhauser completed a late-race pass on Sainteloc Racing’s Paul Evrard to finish eighth in the No. 96 Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R.

Evrard and Gilles Magnus came home to take the Gold Cup win in ninth overall, ahead of Max Hofer. Thomas Fleming and Eliseo Donno captured the Silver Cup win for AF Corse in eleventh.

RESULTS: Race 2