Dakar Rally News: Porsche’s Maiden Dakar Triumph as Marciello Joins BMW
Raffaele Marciello’s victory in the 2023 FIA GT World Cup marked his final outing as a Mercedes driver before switching to BMW. The two-time winner of the prestigious single-driver GT3 event will now make his maiden appearance at the Macau Grand Prix this weekend, racing an M4 as part of a star-studded 23-car entry list that includes several Hypercar class regulars from the World Endurance Championship.
Despite Marciello’s departure, Mercedes still has a strong chance of defending its Macau GT World Cup title. Craft-Bamboo Racing has entered 2011 Macau Grand Prix winner Dani Juncadella and Bathurst ace Jules Gounon, while Maro Engel, the inaugural GT World Cup champion in 2015 and a three-time Macau GT Cup victor, will be vying for a fourth victory at the Guia Circuit.
Engel, who recently became the GT World Challenge Sprint champion and helped Mercedes-AMG clinch the DTM manufacturers’ title, believes the inherent strengths of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 will give him a strong package to challenge for the win. The car has been unbeaten in the headline GT event at Macau since 2018, when Augusto Farfus’s BMW M6 last tasted victory.
“Marciello, now behind the wheel of a Toro Racing-powered BMW, is expected to be a force, while four-time Macau GT winner Edoardo Mortara in the VSR Theodore Racing Lamborghini is another driver to watch out for.”
Amid the high-stakes GT World Cup, Rob Huff, the most successful driver in Macau’s tin-top Guia race, will also be in action, racing an Audi RS3 LMS for Volcano Motorsport in the TCR World Tour finale. The British driver, who has spent the season in the BTCC, is eager to get back to winning ways on the challenging Macau street circuit, where he holds the outright front-wheel-drive lap record.
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