Macau GT World Cup: Marciello wins crash-delayed qualifying race

Mercedes driver Raffaele Marciello won Saturday's qualifying race for the FIA GT World Cup on the streets of Macau, which was interrupted by a red flag following a major crash.

Defending World Cup winner Marciello led the 12-lap race throughout in his Team Landgraf Mercedes-AMG GT3, staving off a stern challenge from brand stablemate Maro Engel.

Edoardo Mortara completed the podium in his Audi R8 LMS GT3, having been passed by Engel on the run down to Lisboa at the start of the race.

Poleman Marciello managed to maintain his advantage on the opening lap, but the safety car was soon deployed when Porsche pair Thomas Preining and Matteo Cairoli both came to a halt at San Francisco.

The race resumed on lap five with Marciello leading Engel, Mortara and Daniel Juncadella, who tried to challenge Mortara heading down to Lisboa in a bid to make it a Mercedes 1-2-3.

But the move backfired and Juncadella was squeezed into the wall, and although he managed to continue he slipped to ninth place.

Out front, Marciello had stretched out a slender advantage of seven tenths of a second when Uno Racing Audi driver Adderly Fong suffered a huge crash at Mandarin on lap eight, bringing out the safety car a second time.

The race was then suspended while marshals repaired the barriers and cleaned the track, with action only resuming 23 minutes later for a two-lap shootout.

Marciello managed to fend off Engel for the crucial run to Lisboa at the restart, and pulled away to the tune of 1.172s to claim victory and give himself pole for Sunday's main event.

"For sure [the red flag] was annoying, but I knew nobody would take big risks to overtake, because the big one is tomorrow," said Marciello, who exits the Mercedes fold after this weekend.

Mortara held on to third ahead of Augusto Farfus in the best of the BMW M4 GT3s.

Macau debutant Sheldon van der Linde made it two BMW drivers in the top five when he passed the Ferrari 296 GT3 of Daniel Serra approaching Lisboa at the final restart, which was the only change of position in the top 10 after the red flag.

Behind Serra, Laurens Vanthoor was a low-key seventh in his Porsche 911 GT3 R, having slipped from fourth on the grid after being nudged out wide at Lisboa on the initial start.

Christopher Haase (Audi), Juncadella and Earl Bamber (Porsche) rounded out the top 10.

Macau FIA GT World Cup - qualifying race results:

Pos.	No.	Driver	Car	Laps	Time	Delay
1	48	Raffaele Marciello	Mercedes	12	56'05.030
2	77	Maro Engel	Mercedes	12	56'06.202	1.172
3	40	Edoardo Mortara	Audi	12	56'06.873	1.843
4	11	Augusto Farfus	BMW	12	56'08.385	3.355
5	32	Sheldon van der Linde	BMW	12	56'08.974	3.944
6	51	Daniel Serra	Ferrari	12	56'10.397	5.367
7	99	Laurens Vanthoor	Porsche	12	56'11.075	6.045
8	41	Christopher Haase	Audi	12	56'11.725	6.695
9	91	Daniel Juncadella	Mercedes	12	56'12.293	7.263
10	22	Earl Bamber	Porsche	12	56'13.694	8.664
11	15	Alessio Picariello	Porsche	12	56'14.046	9.016
12	27	Kevin Estre	Porsche	12	56'14.616	9.586
13	33	Ye Hongli	Porsche	12	56'15.666	10.636
14	13	Cong Fu Cheng	Audi	12	56'17.368	12.338
15	52	Weian Chen	Ferrari	12	56'17.876	12.846
16	2	Jules Gounon	Mercedes	12	56'22.273	17.243
17	70	Marchy Lee	Mercedes	12	56'33.409	28.379
Ret	50	Adderly Fong	Audi	7	21'33.978	-
Ret	120	Matteo Cairoli	Porsche	0	-	-
Ret	28	Thomas Preining	Porsche	0	-	-