r/Sportscar_Racing • u/leo_murray • Sep 04 '24

Other regional/national championships Raffaele Marciello announces he will miss final two British GT rounds due to ‘unacceptable working conditions’.

https://www.instagram.com/stories/team_rmarciello/3449635686707484557?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igsh=MXhpdHprb2tucGVwOQ==
60 Upvotes

97% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

39

u/bradfleu Sep 04 '24

I wonder what happened… he’s struggled since switching to BMW

16

u/Probably_Not_Sir Sep 04 '24

I'm okay with him joining Mercedes again :D

2

u/josap11 Sep 04 '24

He did come across happier at Merc last year, they'd be glad to have him back

1

u/GMKO Sep 05 '24

i dont think its gonna happen anytime soon, the switch to bmw was mostly for the hypercar seat

10

u/Incontinento Sep 04 '24

So strange not seeing him up front.

19

u/TigerWizard Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

RAM Racing allegedly bought an M4 GT3 for the purpose of keeping Marciello with their AM driver in 2024.

Could the recent disqualifications at Snetterton be a factor?

16

u/bigdogg2783 Sep 04 '24

The AM driver (John Ferguson) bought the team over the winter.

I suspect Ferguson is paying a serious premium to have Lelo in the car, and is pissed that he’s not winning more (which is largely Ferguson’s fault and BOP stuff going against BMW more generally). Maybe he put the pressure on Lelo to deliver, and Lelo thought “fuck this, I’ve got enough money not to put up with this shit show”.

3

u/ChrisChros87 Sep 04 '24

I was completely unaware JF bought them. Was that kept hush or am I living under a rock and missed it?

When RM was first announced and everyone was saying champion, I just raised my eyebrow at the quality of the Am

4

u/bigdogg2783 Sep 04 '24

It may have been the winter of 22 actually, losing track of the years. But yeah, he bought them. Wasn’t a big announcement but I saw it somewhere on social media. Apparently it’s a big reason Loggie jumped ship to 2Seas, as he didn’t want a rival running his car.

1

u/Legendacb Sep 06 '24

Ferguson it's one of the slowest AM I saw.

12

u/ajrf92 Sep 04 '24

Is there another link? Don't have Instagram.

27

u/BasedGodStruggling Sep 04 '24

The story says:

I decided to miss the last two rounds of @british_gt Unfortunately, I work in a different way, so the working conditions were no longer acceptable. Good luck to the team for the last two rounds.

11

u/Incontinento Sep 04 '24 edited Sep 04 '24

Thx!

ERA: Damn, so he bailed on the team. Wow. I can't wait to hear more about this.

4

u/mattshiz Sep 04 '24

Shame, he had a chance of doing really well there this weekend as the BMW absolutely dominated this time last year.

It was almost a joke how much faster Dan Harpers M4 was in the cooler conditions round donington.

8

u/ChrisChros87 Sep 04 '24

I heard it was because he used the teams Tesco Clubcard without asking and claimed back the 50p he saved

1

u/Over_Middle610 Sep 05 '24

Sounds like something going on there that BMW dont like either because I would have thought they would tell Marciello to STFU and drive if the hotels or catering food the team provided were sub optimal.

Interesting to see who replaces him.Young official BMW driver or non BMW old Pro.Adam Carroll is my best guess.Raced a BMW at WTR last year and only raced a few times this year.