No.59 McLaren becomes first repeat winner in GTWC EU Sprint with nail-biting finish in race two at Magny-Cours

Aaron Carroll
5 days ago
3 min read

Written by Aaron Carroll

Marvin Kirchhöfer and Benjamin Goethe in the No.59 Garage 59 McLaren have won race two in the GTWC EU Sprint Cup round at Magny-Cours by just a tenth and a half from yesterdays winning No.63 Lamborghini.

The second race of the weekend in the GT World Challenge Sprint Cup at Magny-Cours got underway at 15:15 local time today, with Marvin Kirchhöfer leading the field away from pole in his No.59 McLaren 720S GT3.

The Garage 59 driver got away well from the start, as did yesterdays winner Jordan Pepper in the No.63 Lamborghini in second. The Gold leading No.69 Ferrari sat in third, but the No.32 BMW behind went for a move. Vermeulen in the Ferrari held the position, but went off the track in doing so.

About 15 minutes after the move, Vermeulen was given a five second time penalty for the incident, which would be added to his pit stop.

Kelvin Van Der Linde in the aforementioned BMW had a good getaway on the line, gaining two positions from both of the AF Corse Ferraris. Behind the leaders on lap one, three cars had brief trips into the gravel, but all rejoined unscathed.

On lap two Darren Leung in the No.991 BMW came from a long way back to try and get past the No.27 Audi, but misjudged the move and picked up a puncture. The Briton was forced to limp the car back to the pits. He remerged, but was a long way off the back of the pack.

Back at the front, the top three had created a small gap out to the No.32. The gap for the lead after about 10 minutes was just half a second. The two soon opened a two second gap to the Gold Cup Verstappen car behind.

There was a good battle for second in Bronze, with Dustin Blattner fighting his way past Gabriel Rindone. The championship leading No.74 Ferrari off to chase after the No.81 Mercedes.

It's worth to note as we approached the pit window, that for this race it had been extended from two five minute windows (one for Pro/Gold, one for Silver/Bronze), to two seven and a half minute windows. The first of which was for the Pro and Gold cars.

Most of the front runners pit at the first time of asking. Only the No.69 and No.78 Lamborghini stayed out from the top 10 Gold and Pro cars. Vermeulen came in the next lap, to hand over to Chris Lulham. On pit exit, he got together with the No.50 Ferrari of Thomas Neubauer, giving the Emil Frey car a puncture.

The No.25 Audi in ninth overall after the stops took over the lead in Gold, while all of the Pro cars that were behind the Ferrari shuffled up one spot.

Once everyone had completed their stops, the No.63 and No.59 had a 12 second lead, with the two nose to tail around the lap. Luca Engstler in the Lamborghini went for a move, but Benjamin Goethe in the McLaren held the position in the same way the No.69 did when they got their penalty.

Behind those two, Charles Weerts had obliterated the gap, which was down to 2 seconds with just over 15 minutes left to go. A further six seconds back was Alessio Rovera in the No.51, defending from the No.96 Porsche who had split the two Ferraris.

A car that hit problems yesterday too, the No.111 CSA McLaren found itself in the gravel with 10 minutes to go. This brought out the Full Course Yellow (FCY).

From the moment the green flag waved right until the end of the race the two were nose to tail for the lead.

But in the end the McLaren just held on to win race two at Magny-Cours. The No.63 came home just 0.156 seconds behind them, with the No.32 BMW in third. Paul Evrard took victory in Gold from 10th overall, just ahead of the No.21 Aston Martin in 11th who won in silver, with the No.81 Mercedes winning in Bronze, in another tight finish with the No.74 Ferrari.