The Mercedes-AMG Team Gruppe M Racing took Pole Position with a double win for the 12h del Golfo, the last act of the 2022 season of the Intercontinental GT Challenge which will take place tomorrow in Abu Dhabi.
In Yas Marina, on a windy evening where there was also a few drops of rain that risked further shuffling the cards, Maro Engel/Maximilian Götz/Lucas Auer achieved the best average time in the three Qualifying heats with a time of 1 ’51″474 which places them at the top of the overall standings and among the PROs.
A result of even greater importance if we consider that the mechanics of Gruppe M had to work all night long after Auer crashed in Friday practice destroying the #98 AMG GT3.
At Mercedes-GruppeM there was also celebration for the second place achieved by the #89 driven by Marciello/Juncadella/Gounon, separated by just 23 thousandths from their teammates, while third place went to the Audi R8 LMS #66 of Team Tresor with the Drudi/Marschall/Van Der Linde trio.
Top 5 for the two AF Corse-Francorchamps Motors Ferraris: the fastest of the 488s is the #71 driven by Fuoco/Calado/Pier Guidi, one to keep an eye on since the Calabrian is still in contention for the drivers’ title, followed by the # 50 by Rigon/Rovera/Nielsen.
Sixth place went to the #77 Mercedes driven by Stolz/Al Zubair/Schiller (Al Manar Racing by GetSpeed), which keeps behind the Saintéloc Audis driven by Legeret/Gachet/Magnus (#26) – the best in the Silver Class – and Haase/Niederhauser/Bastard (#25).
#50 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari 488 GT3: Davide Rigon, Alessio Rovera, Nicklas Nielsen
Photo by: SRO
In the general classification, the Top10 is completed by the McLaren 720S of Inception Racing (#7 Barnicoat/Millroy/Iribe) – first PRO-AMs – and Garage59 (#88 Kirchhöfer/Goethe/West), while the ‘twin’ of the latter in the hands of Cheever/Froggatt/Hui/Tse (#93) is 11a after also causing a red flag in the heat of Tse, who spun and then stopped for a few moments in the middle of the track.
As for the IGTC entrants, the #75 Mercedes of SunEnergy1 by SPS (Ellis/Habul/Konrad) obtained the Pole Position in the PRO-AM Class, behind the #69 and #44 Herberth Motorsport Porsches respectively driven by R .Renauer/Kolb/Bohn and Bachler/A.Renauer/Allemann.
The Ferrari #43 of AF Corse-MDK Motorsports will instead start 15th with Kevin and Jan Magnussen at the wheel together with Mark Kvamme, while among the AMs of the IGTC the 488 #52 of Sernagiotto/Cozzi/Hanna stands out, with the Class the general sees the Mercedes #8 of RAM Racing (Grenier/Loggie/Tillbrook), 19th, in first place.
The departure of the 12h of the Gulf is scheduled for Sunday at 7.00 am Italian and will be visible in live streaming on Motorsport.com.
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