Van der Linde, Weerts complete Misano sweep for WRT and BMW in GTWC EU

Credit: SRO/JEP

Kelvin van der Linde and Charles Weerts have won race 2 of the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup round in Misano, completing a weekend sweep after they won race 1 last night. The No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes was second, with the No.48 Winward Mercedes getting the No.46 BMW late on to secure a podium for the crew.

In Gold, Dylan Pereira and Alex Aka also completed a weekend sweep in the No.99 Attempto Audi, with the former fending off Thomas Fleming in the No.58 McLaren late on.

In Silver the No.6 GetSpeed Mercedes of Anthony Bartone and Auerlien Panis won from 12th overall, with Bronze being won from 26th by the No.87 Winward Mercedes of Rinat Salikhov and Marvin Dienst.

As it happened

Jules Gounon led the field away on the formation lap in his No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes after taking pole position in a tight qualifying session earlier on Sunday morning. Yesterday's winning No.32 WRT BMW joined him on the front row after Kelvin van der Linde's lap.

Kobe Pauwels put the No.007 ComToYou Aston Martin in third after the Aston Martin's struggled on Saturday. Fourth was Max Hesse in the No.46 WRT BMW and the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari started fifth in the hands of Arthur Leclerc.

Before we could get going, the No.66 Attempto Audi that was involved in the start collision yesterday was withdrawn from the race, as they couldn't repair the damage sustained in the crash.

The lights went green and both Gounon and van der Linde got away well. The South African hung it around the outside of turn 1, getting the inside for turn 2. Gounon was able to hold it side-by-side though, keeping the inside down to the tight turn 4. He shoved the BMW wide and held his pole position on lap one.

Behind, Hesse got up to third place in the No.46, with Jordan Pepper in the No.31 WRT BMW going from 10th to as high as fifth on lap one. He did however fall back to seventh once the action settled down.

Credit: SRO/JEP

Back in the battle for 12th Bastian Buus in the No.80 Lionspeed Porsche went for a half move on Patric Niederhauser in the No.96 Rutronik Lamborghini Temerario, but the Swiss driver didn't see him.

The front of the Porsche hit the rear of the Lambo, spinning the Rutronik car around. Niederhauser fell to the back of the field, but did keep it going. Buus was given a drive-through for incident responsibility.

The No.27 Kessel Racing Ferrari of Marco Pulcini had a spin, possibly spun by the No.222 2Seas Motorsport Mercedes. Both cars were involved in the fight for the Bronze victory, with Charles Dawson in the Mercedes leading the class when he was given a drive-through for the incident.

The No.007 Aston Martin that was running fourth had a brake issue just over 10 minutes into the race, the team had to bring the car back in to retire. Disappointing for ComToYou after Pauwel's good effort in qualifying.

Back at the front, the top three were all running together, with a four second gap back to Maro Engel in the No.48 Winward Mercedes.

Behind him, Pepper was muscling his way past Ben Green in the No.69 Emil Frey Ferrari for fifth. Bits of bodywork flew off the Ferrari as the two made door-to-door contact and it went off the track. Pepper was given a 10 second penalty for forcing another driver off the track.

As the pit window opened, Hesse in third began to drop off the leaders quite significantly. It looked like the No.46's tyres just not at their best anymore. The top four all pit on the same time, it was a race on the pit lane between 2Seas, WRT and Winward.

WRT won that battle with a phenomenal pit stop, Charles Weerts took the No.32 back out on track in the lead, even with a gap to Daniel Juncadella behind in the No.3. Valentino Rossi emerged third in the No.46, with Lucas Auer emerging with the fastest lap on his first flyer in fourth in the No.48.

The races first interruption came with just over 20 minutes remaining, as the No.14 Emil Frey Ferrari stopped on the side of the track with a mechanical issue. The car was quickly recovered and we went back to green flag racing.

The No.5 Optimum McLaren of Mikey Porter was spun around with under 10 minutes left, as Christopher Haase in the No.84 Eastalent Racing Audi tagged him around.

On the penultimate lap, Auer was pressuring Rossi for the final spot on the podium, with Auer getting the exit onto the back straight in his Mercedes and getting the inside for the next corner. He did however go wide and gave Rossi a look back, but was able to hold the BMW off and secure the podium.

He was too far behind the leaders though, and Juncadella was too far behind Weerts. The No.32 crew completed the double ahead of the No.3 Mercedes, No.48 Mercedes and the No.46 BMW. The No.69 and No.50 Ferrari's were fifth and sixth, with the No.59 McLaren seventh.

The No.99 Audi secured the Gold Cup sweep in eighth, with the No.58 McLaren second in class and ninth overall. Rounding out the top 10 was the No.31 WRT BMW.

The GTWC will return with another sprint round in just two weeks time, as the field head to Magny-Cours from the 31st of July to the second of August.