The 2024 season of Valentino Rossi, Raffaele Marciello and Maxime Martin in the GT World Challenge opened with a bittersweet fourth place obtained by Paul-Ricard.
The first stage of the Endurance Cup saw the Team WRT trio battle for a long time on the Le Castellet track in the 3h staged on Sunday afternoon, with a BMW that for very long stretches was the strongest car in the field, as demonstrated by the deserved success of the #998 of Rowe Racing.
After the sixth position obtained in the morning Qualifying, with Marciello faster than Martin by 0″6 and Rossi by 1″ to significantly lower the average, the start saw the Belgian wait patiently until lap 13 to overtake the tough Ferrari Alessio Rovera, benefiting from greater speed on the straight and climbing to fourth position aiming for the podium.
#46 Team WRT, BMW M4 GT3: Maxime Martin, Raffaele Marciello, Valentino Rossi
Photo by: SRO
At the first pit stop, however, the traffic in the pit lane caused Rossi to lose time and he returned 8th, later moving up to 7th due to the forced stop of the Porsche #22; the 'Doctor', as he himself admitted, suffered in his stint as he was overtaken by Dennis Olsen's Ford and the Audi of a wild Ricardo Feller, before handing over the wheel to Marciello.
'Lello' tried everything in order to recover and on the last lap he grabbed a very precious fourth position from a championship perspective, taking points that could be very useful to the #46 trio.
“During my stint the feeling wasn't bad, I felt good with the car and the pace was good, but unfortunately we lost some positions at the pit stop and I lost another one when restarting from the Safety Car because at first lap I was too slow”, explains Valentino.
“Afterwards I struggled a bit because there was no space to overtake. Paul Ricard is not an easy track because it is very technical. You have to know the right trajectories and pay even more attention to the track limits. When you commit a mistake, there is room to remedy it, but outside the limits of the track”.
“Fortunately our crew is the best, Maxime and Lello are fantastic and in the end finishing fourth is positive, considering we had lost a bit of pace since Free Practice.”
“Lello made a great recovery at the end, it's just a shame he wasn't able to get to the podium; we've always been there, but we were missing a little something. The next race is the 24h of Spa, which is the most important of the championship; it's the our goal and we will work hard to get on the podium.”
#46 Team WRT, BMW M4 GT3: Valentino Rossi
Photo by: Emanuele Clivati | AG Photo
The driver from Tavullia then spoke about the season which also saw him as a protagonist in the FIA World Endurance Championship with Martin and Ahmad Al Harthy, with whom he had come close to the podium in Lusail.
A commitment, the one with the M4 GT3 #46 of WRT which is very different from the one he is facing in the SRO Motorsports Group series.
“This year I have already raced in Bathurst and the first round of the WEC in Qatar, but I am very happy to return to the GTWC; it is different from the others in its level of competitiveness and I can say that it is easier to win in the WEC than in the GTWC “.
“There are a lot of PRO cars here and a lot of very fast drivers. It will be interesting to see how we stack up against our rivals because in the WEC, in fact, we are a PRO-AM crew.”
“For me, 2023 was a good season on a personal level, especially in the Sprint Cup where I achieved a victory and two other podiums. The Endurance races were more complicated, even if we had some excellent races, in particular at the 24h of Spa , where we finished sixth.”
“Our trio is fantastic, as it was already last year with Augusto Farfus. This year, Max and I have Lello at our side, who is one of the best GT drivers in the world.”
#46 Team WRT, BMW M4 GT3: Maxime Martin, Raffaele Marciello, Valentino Rossi
Photo by: SRO
Finally, Rossi returned to the possibility of also going and competing in the 24h on the Nordschleife, which was ruled out in 2024 due to commitments that do not give him the opportunity to go to the Green Hell to race in previous events to obtain the necessary license.
“I would really like to be able to ride on the Nordschleife one day, even if one of my first objectives remains the 24h of Le Mans. For the N24 it is necessary to obtain the 'permit' by racing with a smaller car, which doesn't particularly excite me “.
“But the problem is that my 2024 program is already quite rich with 16 races and I don't have the time to dedicate myself to obtaining this license, so no outing there is planned for this year. We'll see in the future, it will be decided at the moment. I am aware that this permit is mandatory for everyone, but honestly racing with a car slower than a GT3 is not what I'm looking for.”
Finally Andreas Roos, Head of BMW M Motorsport, commented: “Team WRT delivered an excellent performance with the #46 M4 of Valentino Rossi, Maxime Martin and Raffaele Marciello. The three harmonized excellently as a new crew and they just missed the podium.”
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