Photo: SRO

Daniel Juncadella, Jules Gounon and Raffaele Marciello are aiming to share the Intercontinental GT Challenge powered by Pirelli drivers’ title courtesy of Mercedes-AMG’s selection approach to a drop-score rule that was introduced for this season.

The ability for a driver to drop their worst result from the IGTC campaign, excluding the TotalEnergies 24 Hours of Spa, means that Gounon and Marciello can still win the championship alongside Juncadella, despite the trio sharing the same car in Abu Dhabi.

Juncadella leads the IGTC table with 68 points, followed by Gounon and Juncadella on 65 and 50 respectively. The only races they have all done together this season are Spa, which they won, and the Gulf 12 Hours season finale this weekend.

Another Mercedes-AMG driver, Luca Stolz, is also in contention with 43 points.

Juncadella, Gounon and Marciello can share the title by winning Sunday’s 12-hour race in their No. 89 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo.

They will also share the spoils if they finish second in the race, provided that Stolz and his co-drivers Fabian Schiller and Al Faisal Al Zubair don’t take victory.

A win for Stolz would put the German driver on 68 points, which is the maximum number of points Juncadella, Gounon and Marciello would end up with if they come second.

The IGTC rules state that in the event of a tie, and with no clear winner on countback, the highest-finishing driver…