Second is enough: Buus and Feller take the Sprint Cup title as Aka wins Race 1 in Barcelona
Alex Aka wins in the Tresor Attempto Audi, the AF Corse Ferrari of Leclerc and Neubauer retires early, and a one-point margin hands Lionspeed the title on our count
Bastian Buus and Ricardo Feller only needed second place in Race 1 at Barcelona, and that is exactly what they got. Alex Aka won in the Tresor Attempto Audi he shares with Dylan Pereira, 0.789 seconds ahead of Feller, but the Lionspeed GP Porsche crew left the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya being hailed as the 2026 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup champions with one race still to run.
Their closest rival never got going. The AF Corse Ferrari of Arthur Leclerc and Thomas Neubauer stopped at Turn 11 after five laps and was not classified.
Aka took a Gold Cup car to the overall win
The Attempto Audi started 14th on the grid and was not part of the story for most of the afternoon. Pereira handed over to Aka during the pit window, and with ten minutes to go Aka was second behind Dorian Boccolacci’s Boutsen VDS Porsche. When Boccolacci dropped back, the Audi inherited the lead and held off Feller by less than a second. It is the second overall win for a Gold Cup car in the last three Sprint Cup races, after Garage 59’s victory in Race 1 at Zandvoort.
Luca Engstler and Patric Niederhauser completed the podium for Rutronik Racing, 4.309 seconds behind the winners, with the Garage 59 McLaren of Joseph Loake and Dean Macdonald fourth.
Boccolacci set the fastest lap of the race, a 1:56.990, and led for a long spell after the restart. The Boutsen VDS Porsche finished sixth after three pit stops. The stewards gave it a stop-and-go penalty for an unsafe release from its pit box that caused contact with the number 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari, which retired. The number 9 Pure Rxcing Porsche received a drive-through for the Turn 1 collision that spun the same car earlier in the race.
One point of margin, and a title declared
Buus started from pole, a result that earned the crew a championship point before the race, but he lost ground in the opening laps. Bronze and Silver Cup cars filled the first four places early on, and the Dane was fifth after two laps. Feller took over at the stop and brought the car home second, worth twelve points.
By our count, using the official Sprint Cup points scale, that puts Buus and Feller on 72 points. Leclerc and Neubauer stay on 53.5, and With Qualifying 2 cancelled, Sunday offers at most 16.5 more, for the race win. That would take them to 70 at best. Dani Juncadella and Chris Lulham finished twelfth and score nothing, and the defending champions Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde were tenth for half a point.
SRO itself was more careful in its race report, saying Buus and Feller have “all but wrapped up” the title. The classification is still provisional, subject to final scrutineering. The official standings had not yet been updated with the Barcelona results when we published. The crew was presented as champion after the race, but in the TV interview afterwards Feller sounded more cautious than euphoric about the calculations.
A Safety Car, a red flag and a wild final stint
The first Safety Car came out around lap 7, when race control reported the number 50 Ferrari and the number 66 Attempto Audi stopped at Turn 11. Shortly after the pit window the race was red-flagged because the heavy rain made conditions worse, according to SRO. About half the field had already made its mandatory stop; the other half could take it under the red flag. The number 55 Dinamic GT Porsche of Loris Cabirou and Dmitry Gvazava was also in the gravel around that time, was recovered and finished 30th.
The race resumed behind the Safety Car shortly before 14:55 local time, with about 24 minutes left. In the final ten minutes race control noted a contact between the number 3 Mercedes-AMG and the number 48 Mercedes-AMG at Turn 1. Lulham, who had climbed to ninth, dropped back to twelfth. Race control also noted an incident between the number 51 AF Corse Ferrari and the number 69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari of Thierry Vermeulen and Ben Green at Turn 11. The number 69 was classified 40th, nine laps down.
The stewards handed out three time penalties: five seconds for the number 222 2Seas Mercedes-AMG for causing a collision, five seconds for the number 51 AF Corse Ferrari for pushing another car, and 26 seconds for the number 27 Kessel Ferrari in place of a drive-through.
Tempesta, Optimum and Attempto win their classes
Eddie Cheever and Peter Dempsey won the Bronze Cup in fifth place overall in the Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing Porsche. Their championship rivals Marvin Dienst and Rinat Salikhov were third in class, seventeenth overall. Dennis Marschall and Constantin Dressler took second in Bronze for Kessel Racing.
In the Silver Cup, already decided in favour of Team WRT, the Optimum Motorsport McLaren of M. Porter and Guilherme Oliveira took the class win in 21st. The Gold Cup went to Pereira and Aka. Gold Cup leaders Tommaso Mosca and Matias Zagazeta were classified 23rd and were given a post-race penalty, but according to SRO they have clinched the Gold Cup title with a race to spare.
The Race 1 result
Top 21, which covers every class winner. Gaps are to the winner. Source: SRO provisional classification, subject to final scrutineering.
| Pos | No | Class | Drivers | Team | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 99 | Gold | Dylan Pereira / Alex Aka | Tresor Attempto Racing (Audi) | |
| 2 | 80 | Pro | Bastian Buus / Ricardo Feller | Lionspeed GP (Porsche) | +0.789 |
| 3 | 96 | Pro | Patric Niederhauser / Luca Engstler | Rutronik Racing (Lamborghini) | +4.309 |
| 4 | 59 | Pro | Joseph Loake / Dean Macdonald | Garage 59 (McLaren) | +13.536 |
| 5 | 93 | Bronze | Eddie Cheever / Peter Dempsey | Ziggo Sport Tempesta Racing (Porsche) | +14.999 |
| 6 | 2 | Pro | Sven Müller / Dorian Boccolacci | Boutsen VDS (Porsche) | +16.238 |
| 7 | 48 | Pro | Lucas Auer / Maro Engel | Winward Racing (Mercedes-AMG) | +20.565 |
| 8 | 77 | Gold | J. Rappange / David Pittard | KPX Motorsport (BMW) | +22.047 |
| 9 | 74 | Bronze | Dennis Marschall / Constantin Dressler | Kessel Racing (Ferrari) | +22.681 |
| 10 | 32 | Pro | Charles Weerts / Kelvin van der Linde | Team WRT (BMW) | +24.910 |
| 11 | 31 | Pro | A. Cordeel / Jordan Pepper | Team WRT (BMW) | +26.205 |
| 12 | 3 | Pro | Dani Juncadella / Chris Lulham | Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing | +26.887 |
| 13 | 555 | Gold | Simon Gachet / Romain Andriolo | CSA Racing (McLaren) | +27.508 |
| 14 | 84 | Pro | S. Reicher / Christopher Haase | Eastalent Racing (Audi) | +28.919 |
| 15 | 163 | Gold | Loris Spinelli / Mattia Michelotto | VSR (Lamborghini) | +29.755 |
| 16 | 46 | Pro | Valentino Rossi / Max Hesse | Team WRT (BMW) | +29.825 |
| 17 | 87 | Bronze | Marvin Dienst / Rinat Salikhov | Winward Racing (Mercedes-AMG) | +31.082 |
| 18 | 7 | Pro | Kobe Pauwels / Nicki Thiim | Comtoyou Racing (Aston Martin) | +32.110 |
| 19 | 10 | Gold | Gilles Magnus / Robin Knutsson | Boutsen VDS (Porsche) | +32.785 |
| 20 | 991 | Bronze | Augusto Farfus / Darren Leung | Paradine Competition (BMW) | +33.727 |
| 21 | 5 | Silver | M. Porter / Guilherme Oliveira | Optimum Motorsport (McLaren) | +34.169 |
Not classified: number 50 AF Corse (Leclerc, Neubauer), number 66 Tresor Attempto Racing, number 14 Emil Frey Racing and number 9 Pure Rxcing.
Our verdict
This was not how anyone pictured a title being settled. Lionspeed lost the lead at the start, sat in the pack for half the race and only came alive in Feller’s stint. But the Sprint Cup rewards consistency, and Buus and Feller had it all year: pole on Saturday morning and second on Saturday afternoon were enough because their main rival scored nothing at all. A one-point margin built on a qualifying point is a strange way to win a championship, and it explains the subdued mood. Until the final classification and the official standings are published, we would not call it fully done, but the arithmetic is on Lionspeed’s side.
Do Buus and Feller deserve the Sprint Cup title, or did AF Corse lose it more than Lionspeed won it? Tell us in the comments.
Race 2 on Sunday
The rest of Saturday was cancelled because of persistent heavy rain, and the Catalan authorities banned all activity at the circuit until 14:00 on Sunday. Qualifying 2 has been cancelled: the Race 2 grid is set by the best lap of each car’s second driver in Friday’s second free practice, and the revised programme starts at 14:00 on Sunday. Read our qualifying report, the title preview and what the championship looks like in our GT World Challenge Europe explainer.
