McLaren win GTWC EU at Barcelona as Rutronik Porsche seal Endurance Cup title, WRT win overall title
- Aaron Carroll
- Oct 12
- 8 min read
The Gold Cup No.58 Garage 59 McLaren of Louis Prette, Adam Smalley and Dean MacDonald have won the GTWC EU round at Barcelona in dominant fashion, while the No.96 Porsche has secured the Endurance Cup title with a crucial overtake from Patric Niederhauser in the last 10 minutes, with the No.32 BMW taking the Overall title.
The final round of the GT World Challenge Europe (GTWC EU) got underway at 15:00 local time (13:00 GMT), with the No.58 McLaren leading a Garage 59 McLaren 1-2 on the grid.
There were many championship honours up for grabs across all the classes for both the Endurance Cup and Overall standings, but all eyes were on the Pro class titles. Lucas Auer and Maro Engel headed the way in both (joined by Matteo Cairoli in Endurance), they started in P6.
Their closest Endurance challengers were the No.96 Rutronik Porsche, just five points behind and starting 10th. Meanwhile they had the same lead in the Overall title fight, but this time ahead of the No.32 BMW, who started in a lowly 31st after a 10 place grid drop.
While the Mann-Filter Mercedes was certainly the favourites, with three hours of racing ahead, anybody could take the victory.
As it happened
Before the race got going, the No.30 BMW moved away from the grid slowly. After a short delay driver Cheli Etienne got the car moving, with race control announcing there would be an extra formation lap to allow them to re-take their starting position. The clock did however start counting at the end of the first formation lap.
Dean MacDonald got the pole sitting car away well, as did his teammate Benjamin Goethe in the sister car. Jules Gounon in the No.17 Mercedes jumped to third ahead of the No.51 Ferrari, with Alessio Picariello having a monster getaway, going from tenth to fourth. Their championship rivals, the No.48 Mercedes lost one position to seventh.
Behind the leaders there was a bit of a pileup at turn 3, involving the No.42 Silver Cup championship leading BMW, the No.65 Ford Mustang had damage as did the No.888 Porsche. There was also a pack of other cars involved, but none picked up any major damage.
The ensuing safety car was very short, just the one lap for the martials to clear up debris. It was a clean restart, with Gounon in the third placed Mercedes getting away well. He slide his GetSpeed car down the inside at turn 7, moving past the No.59 up to second.
From the two starts, the No.32 BMW had worked it's way up to 25th overall, but didn't seem to have lightning quick pace compared to it's competitors. Charles Weerts was busy fending off Eddie Cheever behind in the No.93 Bronze Cup leading Ferrari.
MacDonald was pushing out front, pulling out a two and a half second gap after 15 minutes, with Gounon coming back under pressure from Goethe for second.
The first Full-Course Yellow (FCY) of the race came after half an hour for a big collision between the No.81 Mercedes and the No.8 Ferrari. The two collided on the exit of turn 5 with both flying into the inside barrier and coming back across the track where they finally rested. Both cars were completely destroyed, and would not be seen again during the race.
15 minutes in to the SC/FCY running, Garage 59 were among a large chunk of the grid to take a gamble into the pit lane. The No.58 got in and out with no issues, but the No.59 Pro car couldn't get going after the stop. Goethe tried to get it going but there was nothing for it, the team had to roll the car back into the garage.
The next lap around, most of what was left on track took to the pits as well. The No.63 Lamborghini took the lead as one of the only cars that stayed out, but eventually they did jump into pit lane. That left the No.888 Bronze Porsche and the No.19 Silver McLaren as the only two that had not pitted.
The No.35 Aston Martin and the No.5 McLaren would take up the lead of the race, after they had pitted before the SC, although the No.888 took the restart, but they needed to pit. Then came the No.58 McLaren, the No.9 Mercedes and the No.99 Silver leading Audi.
The two original pit stop groups were distinctively split, the first led by the No.58 and the second led by the No.51 Ferrari and No.17 Mercedes. This was important due to the 64 minute maximum stint, which extends to 69 if a SC interrupts the stint. If the final stint length was extended by a SC, it would be advantage to the first group, but if not those that had track position now would need to pit again.
The No.888 Porsche instantly dropped down the order on the restart, with the No.35 taking the lead. Adam Smalley now in the No.58 fought with Mikael Grenier in the No.9 Mercedes, just able to fend him off on the opening restart lap.
Down the order the second pit stop group fought internally too, the No.51 Ferrari, No.17 Mercedes and crucially the No.96 Porsche and the No.48 Mercedes all battled over 14th position.
Crucially though, a group of cars were given penalties for lap one incidents. Included was the No.48 Mercedes, who would suffer a 10 second loss in their next pit stop. The list also included the No.5 and No.9, the cars running second and fourth.
That wouldn't be the biggest of the worries for the No.9 crew though, as Grenier slowed on the back straight with a mechanical issue. The Dane was able to get the Boutsen VDS Mercedes back to the pits and it was rolled into the garage.
Meanwhile the No.32 BMW had jumped up to eighth through the strategy, Ugo de Wilde lapping that car during the middle stint.
The No.96 Porsche was trying to find a way by the No.51, trying a move around the outside but the Ferrari tagged the Rutronik car and damaged its front bumper.
As this was happening, the No.92 Porsche found itself stuck in the gravel and bringing out the next FCY. It was quickly removed from the gravel trap and got moving again, with some damage on the front.
It was a short interruption, so we got away again very quickly. Fabian Schiller in the No.17 Mercedes was quick away from the FCY, going straight down the inside of the No.34 Aston Martin, who was caught napping on the limiter.
James Allen in the No.5 McLaren soon took the lead of the race too as Oliver Söderström's pace dropped off slightly.
Behind the leading group Antonio Fuoco in the No.50 Ferrari was starting to light up the timing screens. He made quick work of Chris Lulham, Alessandro Ghiretti and Ugo de Wilde to get into eighth place, before setting off after the lead group.
The car he was chasing, the No.007 Aston Martin fell foul of a drive-through penalty for an unsafe release, giving him an easier route up to the front.
Drivers and teams also started reporting that there were spots of rain appearing in places, nothing heavy enough to warrant wet tyres yet, but something extra for the strategists to keep an eye on.
Ghiretti in the No.22 Porsche made a mega move around the outside of the No.32 BMW for ninth, the WRT championship challenger struggling for pace. The sister No.30 car also stopped on track at this stage too, not a good handful of laps for WRT. The stopped car brought out another FCY.
The two cars that were out of sequence, the No.5 and No.35 both pit the moment we went back to green, leaving the No.58 back out in the lead.
Fuoco continued his work up the field, getting past Jesse Khron in the No.98 ROWE BMW for fourth place as we neared the final round of pit stops. He made quick work of Leonardo Moncini in the No.99 Silver leading Audi too, taking third overall.
With an hour and 10 minutes remaining the No.88 Audi had a massive collision, with massive damage being done to the car. As expected, the race director called the FCY. The Audi lost it in a battle with the No.333 Lamborghini, hitting the wall with a lot of force. Thankfully the driver escaped unaided.
The pit lane was not closed, so cars piled into the pit lane at the first available opportunity for their final stops.
After those stops the order stayed relatively the same, the No.58 leading from the No.777 BMW and the No.50 Ferrari. The No.96 Porsche was 11th and the No.48 was 13th, so with neither scoring points the title would go to the Mercedes.
Patric Niederhauser in the Porsche started a charge up the order, moving to ninth within 10 minutes of the restart. Lucas Auer in the Mercedes was struggled to follow suit, staying down in 13th.
Meanwhile at the head of the field Louis Prette in the No.58 McLaren was pulling away from the No.777 BMW with the two Gold cup cars leading 1-2 overall.
Niederhauser soon cleared Marco Sorenson for eighth too, Alessio Rovera in the No.51 Ferrari following suit. The Porsche was edging closer and closer to a position in which it would take the title. Auer soon jumped up to 11th though, one place away from the points paying positions.
However that position could have been under jeopardy, as the stewards announced that the No.48 was under investigation for not serving its earlier 10 second time penalty.
The No.32 BMW was also still running in sixth, so in that position the Mercedes would lose out in both the Endurance and Overall titles.
Niederhauser was trying all that he could to get by Harry King in the No.33 Verstappen dot com Aston Martin, but couldn't quite squeeze by. It was also announced that the No.48 had a five second time penalty from the earlier investigation, which hurt its chances even more. No matter what though, the Porsche needed to get by King.
Up ahead Raffaele Marciello in the No.98 BMW and Arthur Leclerc in the No.50 Ferrari went side-by-side for third, with the BMW winning and moving into the podiums positions and into the lead of the Pro class. With 15 minutes to go, Prette in the No.58 McLaren had a 17 second lead over the No.777 BMW.
With 10 minutes to go, Niederhauser finally went for the move in turn 5 and got through on King. They just had to survive and handful more laps to win the title, as long as the No.48 didn't move into the points and get five seconds clear of the car in tenth place.
The Swiss driver did get a black and white flag for track limits a couple of minutes after the move, so even more pressure was added on as he tried to guide the Rutronik team to the title.
At the front, Marciello continued charging after the No.777 for second, and in the dying laps of the race made the move and took second overall. But on the final lap Jens Klingmann came back at the ROWE driver to re-take second, where he would finish.
It was Prette who brought the No.58 Garage 59 McLaren across the line then after a dominant performance from him and his teammates Smalley and MacDonald.
Niederhauser held on to take the Endurance title for the No.96 Rutronik Porsche, while the No.32 BMW came from 31st on the grid to finish sixth and take the Overall title, to go along with the Sprint title that they took in Valencia a few weeks ago.
In the Gold Cup it was the No.33 Verstappen dot com car that took both avaliable championships, completing the GTWC EU sweep in dominant fashion.
In Silver, the No.99 Attempto Audi won the race from fifth overall, but the No.42 BMW that was facing the wrong way on lap 1 came back to finish sixth in class, enough to seal the Endurance Cup title. Their rivals, the No.10 Mercedes, did however do enough to take the Overall title in class.
Finally in Bronze, the No.97 Rutronik Porsche won the race from 16th overall but the No.74 Kessel Racing Ferrari took championship glory in both avaliable standings.
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