Raffaele Marciello, winner of the most recent edition of the race on the Formula 3 Grand Prix weekend in 2019, will be joined by fellow Mercedes driver Maro Engel, Porsche’s Laurens Vanthoor, BMW racer Augusto Farfus and Edoardo Mortara on the 21-car grid on the sixth running of the event on 18/19 November.
The World Cup for GT3 machinery on the Macau Guia street circuit has been revived for this year, along with the F3 GP, after a hiatus resulting from the COVID pandemic and travel restrictions into China.
Marciello will race for the Landgraf team with which he won last year’s ADAC GT Masters title.
Engel, who claimed the inaugural World Cup in 2015, will turn out in a Mercedes-AMG GT3 run by the Craft-Bamboo team with which he won the Macau GT3 race last year when it did not have World Cup status.
Vanthoor, who won the race in 2016 for Audi in dramatic fashion when he finished the World Cup final on his roof, will drive a Porsche 911 GT3 R for the Toro Racing team, a regular in Porsche Carrera Cup Asia.
Mortara, whose 2017 World Cup victory counts as one of six across the F3 and GT3 races, will drive an Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II for the pan-Asian Absolute squad.
The German Rowe Racing team will field a BMW M4 GT4 for Farfus, who took World Cup honours in 2018.
Marciello said: “Macau is always special, even last year when it wasn’t the World Cup.
“For sure, it [2019] was one of my biggest victories: I always wanted to win Macau, so be able to win it was special.
“This year will not be easy; the competition will be really high, but we go there and to do our best to try to win it again.”
Engel, who first won the Macau GT race the year before it became the World Cup, described the event “as an absolute highlight of the racing season”.
“It is a spectacular event, an amazing track that I love, have always enjoyed and have had great success on.
“I have been able to celebrate many great achievements there and I will try to repeat the victory from last year.”
Farfus, whose victory in 2018 came with the Schnitzer team, echoed Engel’s sentiments, calling Macau a “magical place”.
Mercedes will be represented by four factory drivers, with Daniel Juncadella, winner of the F3 GP in 2011, and Macau rookie Jules Gounon respectively lining up with Craft-Bamboo and the Chinese Climax Racing squads.
BMW’s two-car line-up is completed by 2022 DTM champion Sheldon van der Linde in an M4 entered by WRT, winner of the World Cup with Vanthoor in 2016.
A further two full factory drivers from Porsche will take part in the GT3 race on the two-weekend 70th anniversary running of the Macau GP, while World Endurance Championship driver Kevin Estre and new DTM champion Thomas Preining are both turning out with the Taiwanese HubAuto squad.
Porsche-contracted Matteo Cairoli will race a GT3 R for Absolute, while two-time Le Mans 24 Hours winner Earl Bamber will drive a car entered by his eponymous team under the D2 Racing Team banner.
Mortara is joined at Absolute in a second R8 by Audi factory driver Christopher Haase.
The solo Ferrari 296 GT3 at the World Cup has been entered by Chinese team Harmony Racing for factory driver Daniel Serra.
Other notable names on the entry include Alessio Picariello and local drivers Congfu ‘Franky’ Cheng, Marchy Lee and Adderly Fong.
The FIA GT World Cup will awarded to the winner of a one-hour race ahead of the F3 GP on Sunday, 19 November.
The grid for the main race will be decided by a one-hour qualifying event on the Saturday.
