Verstappen Racing dominates proceedings in GTWC EU Magny-Cours Race one to achieve maiden 2026 win

Credit: SRO/JEP

The No.3 Verstappen Racing of Jules Gounon and Dani Juncadella dominated proceedings in Race one of the GT World Challenge Europe (GTWC EU) Magny-Cours Sprint Cup round, in an hour that proved unremarkable for the most part.

As it happened

At the start, Jules Gounon in the pole-sitting No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes retained the lead, from the Bronze cup leading No.222 2Seas Motorsport Mercedes of Kiern Jewiss.

Fabian Schiller in the No.12 GetSpeed Mercedes got a pretty good start, initially jumping into third, but then getting boxed in at turn one, losing the place to Lucas Auer in the No.48 Winward Racing Mercedes.

A big initial loser was the No.46 Team WRT BMW of Max Hesse, which started in third but fell as low as seventh on the opening laps, behind the Mercedes quartet, as well as the No.50 AF Corse Ferrari of Thomas Neubauer and the No.7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin of Kobe Pauwels.

No incidents of note occured early on, aside from some typical wheels on grass moments further down the order, of course more likely to happen on a narrow circuit, such as Magny-Cours.

Early big-movers were Alessio Picariello in the No.17 Boutsen VDS Porsche and Jim Pla in the No.26 Sainteloc Racing Audi, gaining five and seven places respectively to end up inside the top 20 early on, with Amaury Cordeel in the No.31 Team WRT BMW further down the order, having made up nine places to find himself in 36th.

A quarter of the way in, Gounon was four seconds ahead and still in the lead, with Jewiss, Auer Schiller and Neubauer making an unchanged top five. Class leaders were the aforementioned Gounon for Pro and Jewiss for Bronze, with 11th placed Gilles Magnus in the No.10 Boutsen VDS Porsche leading the Gold cup and 12th placed Matisse Lismont leading the Silver cup in the No.30 Team WRT BMW.

Up until the point when the pit-stop/driver swap window opened, not much of note happened regarding the leading pack, with Gounon gradually increasing his gap from pursuers.

With the leading Mercedes going a lap longer than the chasing pack in the first stint, Auer, Neubauer, Pauwels and Hesse were the first leading drivers to pit, handing the reigns over to their respective teammates, Maro Engel, Arthur Leclerc, Nicki Thiim and Valentino Rossi.

Gounon handed the No.3 Mercedes over to Dani Juncadella on lap 19, with Jewiss, Schiller and two other Bronze class cars leaving it late, pitting at the end of lap 21. After the only scheduled round of pitstops, Juncadella returned into the lead with the Verstappen Racing Mercedes, still having a handy gap to second placed Leclerc.

The No.50 Ferrari was the biggest winner of the pit-stop cycle, gaining three places to end up second after jumping both the two Bronze leaders, who were burdened by their minimum pit stop time, as well as the No.48 Mercedes of Engel.

The Mercedes also lost out to the No.7 Aston Martin of Thiim, whilst further back, a disappointing day for Team WRT got even worse, as a slow pit stop allowed the No.59 Garage 59 McLaren of Marvin Kirchhöfer to get past Rossi into fifth.

With 22 minutes to go a Full Course Yellow was called, as the No.84 Eastalent Racing Audi of Christopher Haase was left stranded, after an accident involving multiple cars left him with significant damage, the German driver being essentially ''sandwiched'' into retirement.

The FCY was in place for a decent amount of time, with action not resuming up until only 11 minutes remained. After the green flag was shown, all eyes turned on the battle for second between the Ferrari of Leclerc and the Aston Martin of Thiim, with the pair even having a bit of contact between them.

Juncadella up front seemed to have lost some rhythm, with Leclerc closing the gap right up, down to two and a half seconds after his battle with Thiim, with only five minutes to go.

The Spanish driver though retained his calm and held the Monegasque at arms length, winning Race one by two and a half seconds, with Leclerc taking a very good second place and Thiim crossing the line in third to complete the podium.

Further back, the eighth placed No.10 Boutsen VDS Porsche driven by Robin Knutsson won the Gold cup, with Bronze honours going 2seas' way, as the No.222 Mercedes finished in 11th overall with Charles Dawson behind the wheel, with the Silver cup win going to the No.30 Team WRT of Ignacio Montenegro in 15th overall.

Results of GTWC EU Race one - Top 10 overall

1st No.3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes (Gounon, Juncadella)

2nd No.50 AF Corse Ferrari (Neubauer, Leclerc)

3rd No.7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin (Pauwels, Thiim)

4th No.48 Winward Racing Mercedes (Auer, Engel)

5th No.59 Garage 59 McLaren (MacDonald, Kirchhöfer)

6th No.46 Team WRT BMW (Rossi, Hesse)

7th No.32 Team WRT BMW (Van der Linde, Weerts)

8th No.10 Boutsen VDS Porsche (Knutsson, Magnus) (Gold cup winner)

9th No.2 Boutsen VDS Porsche (Boccolacci, Picariello)

10th No.99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi (Pereira, Aka)