Pole position, fastest lap and victory by leading every lap was about as unequivocal as you could get in race two of the Magny-Cours weekend. And perhaps the most concerning aspect for ASP’s rivals was that the result barely looked in doubt throughout the one-hour encounter.
“The car was amazing all weekend, and when it’s like this it makes everything much easier,” said Marciello, who now heads Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor by 3.5 points in the overall standings.
But despite this dominance, which followed a similar performance in the second race of the Brands Hatch opener, reigning Sprint Cup champions Weerts and Vanthoor remain firmly in the mix after a victory with their WRT Audi in the opening race.
The Belgian duo arrived in France with a three-point deficit to their Merc opposition, and knew they’d have to make inroads early on. They did just that, despite Weerts dropping a place to third off the rolling start.
The early advantage was held by the polesitting Car Collection Audi of Simon Gachet ahead of the fast-starting Gilles Magnus (Sainteloc Audi). WTCR driver Magnus impressed, but a mistake a Grande Courbe allowed Weerts through into second, and crucially into clean air.
WRT’s decision to pit Weerts at the start of the window forced Car Collection’s hand, and Gachet came in one lap later. But by the time Christopher Haase took over from Gachet, Vanthoor had done just enough to sneak into the lead, the pair of R8s going side by side at Grande Courbe.
From then on, it was a fairly straightforward affair for Vanthoor, who came home just over three seconds clear of a recovering Marciello. Indeed, had it not been for a significant time loss in the pits for the Mercedes – it lost 3.4s to the WRT Audi – Marciello could well have bagged a double win.
The Mercedes was fastest in qualifying for the second race, and duly led away from the start with the sister car of Maximilian Gotz in hot pursuit. Further back, it was a nightmare opening salvo for Vanthoor, who started fourth on the grid despite bringing out the red flag in qualifying after a crash at the Nurburgring chicane, and slid into the gravel at Turn 1. The WRT Audi dropped 10 places, but managed to recover to sixth by the end.
Out front, Marciello began to stretch his legs and opened up a lead of over 7s as Gotz fell into the clutches of Christopher Mies (WRT) and Patric Niederhauser (Sainteloc). Both Audis got past the Mercedes, but neither could hold a torch to the unbeatable Marciello, who handed over to Boguslavskiy with 25 minutes remaining.
The Russian couldn’t match Marciello’s pace over a lap, but the Mercedes remained in charge until the end, while Gotz and Jim Pla made it an ASP 1-2 after leapfrogging the Audi of Niederhauser and Aurelien Panis at the end of the pitstop window.
Silver Cup honours went to Sainteloc Junior Team pair Magnus and Nicolas Baert in race one, with AF Corse Ferrari duo Pierre-Alexandre Jean and Ulysse de Pauw taking victory in race two.
