MISANO ADRIATICO, ITALY – If motorsport has taught us anything, it’s that starting from pole position at the tight, technical Misano World Circuit is highly advantageous—but only if you survive the terrifying dash into Turn 1.
While the home crowd anticipated a fairy-tale evening under the floodlights for polesitter Valentino Rossi, the opening lap of Saturday’s 60-minute Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup race rewrote the script entirely. Capitalizing on an explosive launch from fourth on the grid, Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde cruised to a dominant victory in the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO, crossing the line 19.65 seconds clear of their closest rivals.
The victory marks a historic milestone for Weerts, matching his former teammate Dries Vanthoor’s record of 19 overall Sprint Cup wins, with nine of those spectacular triumphs conquered right here on the Adriatic coast.
The Start: A Front-Row Nightmare
The drama unfolded the exact millisecond the green lights flashed. Both polesitter Valentino Rossi in the #46 BMW and fellow front-row starter Andrea Frassineti in the #66 Tresor Attempto Audi suffered sluggish getaways.
Sensing an opening, a charging Ricardo Feller tried to rocket his #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche right down the middle to split them. As the front-row duo converged toward the racing line to cover the threat, contact was made. The initial squeeze dramatically unsettled both Rossi and Frassineti, setting off a massive chain-reaction pileup behind them.
Frassineti’s Audi spun outward, slamming heavily into Marvin Dienst’s Winward Mercedes-AMG. The secondary impact sent the Audi pirouetting helplessly across the track directly into the path of Daniel Juncadella in the #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing car, eliminating both Juncadella and Frassineti on the spot.
Weerts Seizes the Moment
Amidst the flying carbon fiber and smoke, Charles Weerts thread the needle flawlessly. Launching from the second row, the Belgian driver swept past the unfolding disaster to claim the lead before the Safety Car was deployed to clear the wreckage.
When racing resumed on Lap 4, Weerts didn’t look back. He instantly began pulling away from the field, leaving the Bronze class Mercedes-AMG entries of Marvin Dienst and Fabian Schiller to battle intensely for second, effectively acting as a buffer against the recovering pack.
Meanwhile, Rossi’s difficult evening went from bad to worse. Not only had he dropped back to fourth in the opening melee, but race control handed the #46 machine a harsh 10-second time penalty for being positioned outside the grid hatchings at the initial start.
Cruising in the Dark
When the pit window opened, WRT executed a text-book driver swap, handing the leading #32 BMW over to Kelvin van der Linde. The South African driver, returning to peak form after a massive shunt just a few weeks prior, maintained a relentless, metronomic pace as darkness fully enveloped the circuit.
Behind him, the battle for the remaining podium steps intensified. Ricardo Feller, who had dropped back to sixth early on, executed a brilliant overcut strategy by staying out one lap longer than his rivals before handing the #80 Lionspeed Porsche over to Bastian Buus. The strategic masterstroke allowed Buus to leapfrog the field into second place.
Buus then drove a masterful defensive stint, successfully holding off a hard-charging Maro Engel in the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG.
Neutralized Finish
With just five minutes remaining on the clock, a tense multi-car battle for the podium was abruptly cut short. The #555 CSA Racing McLaren of Romain Andriolo suffered a mechanical issue and stranded itself deep in the gravel trap, prompting a Full Course Yellow.
With time running out to safely recover the car, the race finished under neutralization, freezing the field in place.