Mattia Drudi earned victory for Tresor Orange 1 in the second GT World Challenge race of the weekend at Brands Hatch, but Valentino Rossi’s first series podium was the main story of the day.

While Drudi's Audi surged from seventh on the grid, Rossi’s BMW went from third to second after the pit stops and then more than held his own as he took his first top-three finish in the series.

The #27 Audi of pole sitter Christopher Mies led the first half of the race, and stayed out longer than the rest of the field during the driver change phase. That would ultimately cost them as not only did the Audi (started by Ricardo Feller and handed to Drudi) climb from seventh to first after being amongst the first pitters following a safety car, but was jumped by several other runners, including Rossi's WRT BMW M4. 

The Italian's teammate Maxime Martin had begun the race in third place, and held the position all the way through the first half, but a quick pit stop allowed Rossi to join the track in second place once the order had sorted itself out after all the mandatory driver changes had taken place.

While Drudi was able to establish a comfortable gap of around four seconds for most of the final stages, all eyes were on the yellow and blue BMW of Rossi, who kept around a second clear of the fellow WRT car of Charles Weerts in third.

Rossi said: "I'm so happy, it's my first podium. A podium is always special but the first one is even more. We had the chance in Monza but we were unlucky, but Max [Martin] did the job yesterday in qualifying and gave the car to me in a great position, and I had good pace. Thanks to everybody at the team, I am very happy!"

Behind the podium finishers were the Garage 59 McLaren of Benjamin Goethe and Nicolai Kjaergaard, and the Comtoyou Racing Audi R8 of Lucas Legret and Christopher Hause. 

Race one winners Raffaele Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy blasted from 19th on the grid to sixth, ahead of the third WRT BMW of Calan Williams and Niklas Krutten. 

The Konsta Lappalainen/Giacomo Altoe Ferrari took eighth ahead of the Finlay Hutchinson/Gilles Magnus Audi R8, with the similar machine of Erwan Bastard and Patric Niederhauser completing the top-10. 

Fanatec GT World Challenge, powered by AWS, Brands Hatch GP race two result:
1. Mattia Drudi/Ricardo Feller, Audi R8 LMS Evo II, 41 laps
2. Valentino Rossi/Maxime Martin, BMW M4 GT3, +3.769s
3. Charles Weerts, Dries Vanthoor, BMW M4 GT3, +4.659s
4. Benjamin Goethe/Nicolai Kjaergaard, McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, +5.317s
5. Lucas Legret/Christoper Haase, Audi R8 LMS Evo II, +7.692s
6. Raffaele Marciello/Timur Boguslavskiy, Mercedes AMG GT3, +8.090s
7. Calan Williams/Niklas Krutten, BMW M4 GT3, +15.108s
8. Konsta Lappalainen/Giacomo Altoe, +34.583s
9. Finlay Hutchinson/Gilles Magnus, Audi R8 LMS Evo II, +37.235s
10. Erwan Bastard/Patric Niederhauser, Audi R8 LMS Evo II, +39.030s

Click here for full result. 

The next major event at Brands Hatch is the Masters Historic Festival on 27-28 May. Click here for more information or to book tickets.