Victory in Macau

Certainly one of the more unusual finishes to a major race this year, Laurens Vanthoor has won the 2016 FIA GT World Cup on the famous Macau street circuit. Driving for the Belgian Auto Club Team WRT, Vanthoor dominated the qualification race on the Saturday and was considered the hot favourite for Sunday’s main event. 

The race got off to a flying start and Vanthoor in the Audi R8 LMS car was out in front on the notoriously narrow and treacherous Macau street circuit, when the race was stopped while a section of the track was repaired following an accident.

The race was ultimately restarted and again Laurens led the pack when he clipped a curb at Mandarin Oriental corner, impacted with the guard barrier and rolled the car.

Happily, given the Audis significant safety systems and construction, Vanthoor was completely unhurt - climbing from the car to appluse from the huge crowd - but again, race organisers were forced to stop the race to clear the track.

This is where the story takes a particularly interesting turn. Given the number of laps completed and the elapsed time, organisers elected not to restart the race a second time, but rather awarded the race based on the classified positions held after four completed laps.

This handed the 25-year-old Belgian the race win, and gave Audi its fourth win on the Macau circuit (having previously won in 2011, 2012 and 2013).

“I’m happy and relieved about not having been injured,” said Vanthoor (pictured), who has won three international GT titles with Audi before. “My accident happened in one of the fastest track sections. I made a mistake and caused an accident, and won nonetheless. I’m still not quite sure about how to rate this victory.” 

Chris Reinke, Head of Audi Sport customer racing, was delighted about Audi’s fourth victory in Macau and the first World Cup title of the R8 LMS: 

“The most important thing for us is that Laurens is okay. This shows how safe our cars are. It’s arguably a little strange to win this way. It was a very intensive race. Fortune and misfortune always play a role in Macau, but one of the prerequisites for success was the fact that we were in contention for the top spot in all sessions,” he said. 

In three weeks’ time, Laurens Vanthoor and his teammates will battle for another international title for Audi, the 12-hour race at Sepang coming up in Malaysia, a race the Belgian Auto Club Team WRT won last year.