Valentino Rossi wins in Misano with Marciello to beat Ferrari in GTWC 2025 Sprint Cup Race 1

Written by Owen Bradley

Credit: SRO/JEP

Valentino Rossi has scored his third consecutive victory at the GT World Challenge Europe Misano Sprint Cup round, taking victory in Race 1 after teammate Raffaele Marciello made a bold, brave and beautiful overtake on the No.51 Ferrari.

Alessio Rovera maintained the lead in the pole-sitting No.51 Ferrari AF Corse on the chaotic opening lap, ahead of Denis Marschall in the No.74 Ferrari. It was the Ferrari's leading the way ahead of hometown hero and MotoGP Legend Valentino Rossi, who hounded the No.74 Ferrari on the opening lap after being taken offline in Turn 2 by the No.14 Ferrari behind, who dived up the inside of the Italian, but was unable to complete the overtake.

An opening lap crash between several cars saw Maxime Martin in the No.9 Mercedes spiral off the circuit on entry to Turn 6's quick left-hander. Martin was hit by a BMW behind, as other cars also picked up damage too.

One of those cars was the No.69 Emil Frey Verstappen Racing Ferrari, which picked up a puncture and was almost collected by a large amount of cars bombing their way into Turn 7's slow left-hander. With several cars picking up damage and the No.9 Mercedes stationary, a Safety Car was deployed.

Once the green flag was waved once again, the No.74 Ferrari managed to make an exceptional run on the leading the No.51 Ferrari of Rovera, almost going around the outside into a long right-hand corner.

Rovera would maintain the lead and started to extend his lead over Marschall behind. Meanwhile, Rossi had already been given three track limits warnings within the first five laps, meaning that the No.46 Team WRT BMW would need to be incredibly well behaved for the rest of the race.

The No.01 Lamborghini brought out a Full Course Yellow after being sat on the exit of the final corner. One of the fellow Lamborghini's unfortunately hit the No.01 and sent the car directly into the barriers.

The first pit stops would be made in unison, with both the leading No.51 Ferrari and the No.46 BMW coming in, leading the way for the rest of the field. Valentino Rossi would give the No.46 car over to Raffaele Marciello, who immediately set the pace, by setting the fastest lap of the race, just a couple of laps into his stint.

Credit: SRO/JEP

Once the No.74 Ferrari came in and therefore the Bronze Cup cars had been cleared away from the Pro Cup cars, it was a race at the front between the No.51 Ferrari of Abril, vs the No.46 Team WRT BMW of Marciello, who had just taken over from Rossi.

The No.32 Team WRT BMW of Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde had also steadily improved throughout the race, battling the No.96 Rutronik Porsche and several other cars early on, meaning that once that No.74 Ferrari got out of the way, due to Bronze Cup pit stops taking longer, they were on for a podium, and were attempting to cut down the gap to the two cars ahead.

The No.48 Mercedes of Maro Engel would make a dramatic but impressive overtake at the completely flat-out triple right-hander, overtaking the No.63 Lamborghini of Luca Engstler at Turns 11 and 12, before solidifying the move into Turn 13.

With the track so narrow, the massive GT grid at Misano were pushing one another wide, making light contact and getting a lot of track limits warnings. But meanwhile, the gaps between one another rarely changed, certainly in the Pro class.

As the sun set behind the hills, the leading No.51 Ferrari of Abril approached some of the lapped traffic, and was forced to move away from the racing line. This gave Raffaele Marciello a fantastic opportunity to get closer to the rear of the Ferrari, as the No.46 BMW closed by two seconds in one lap, the gap going from 3.2 seconds, down to 1.2 seconds.

An Aston Martin got in the way of the leading No.51 Ferrari at Turn 14's slow right-hander, allowing for the BMW of Marciello and Rossi to get within half a second of the leading No.51 Ferrari of Abril. With less than 10 minutes remaining, the lead fight was very colourful at the front, with Marciello looking to the inside of some corners.

Credit: SRO/JEP

Suddenly, as Marciello ran different lines through Turns 7,8 and 9, the No.46 BMW got an exceptional run out of Turn 10, pulling alongside the No.51 Ferrari of Abril into Turn 11's fast, flat-out right-hander. The Ferrari squeezed the BMW right to the apex, but Marciello braved it out and managed to dive to the inside, keeping it on the circuit on the exit of the corner, snatching the lead of the race.

On the final lap of the race, the No.48 Mercedes managed to bravely dive down the inside of the No.96 Rutronik Porsche into Turn 2, late on the brakes as the Porsche aggressively flashed the headlights.

Marciello rounded the final corner to send the Italian crowd into celebration, as the No.46 Team WRT BMW of Valentino Rossi and Raffaele Marciello won the race.

This result ensures that Rossi has now taken victory at the GT World Challenge Misano round for a third consecutive year, winning with Maxime Martin in 2023 and 2024, and now with Marciello in 2025.

There is still one more race to run on Sunday, Race 2 of the Sprint weekend.