Free Practice
Ricardo Feller was fastest in Free Practice for the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup event at Circuit Zandvoort.
The Porsche-contracted driver set a 1:33.622 towards the end of the 100-minute session, putting his Bronze Cup-entered #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3.R (992) to the top of the times. It would turn out otherwise be the fastest time of the day.
Alex Aka was second aboard the #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, and fastest in the Silver Cup, with a 1:33.767.
Third fastest, and first of the Pro cars, was Luca Stolz in the #9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, ahead of the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 of Dennis Marschall.
Dylan Pereira was fifth in the #66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi, with Imperiale Racing’s Loris Spinelli completing the top six in the #85 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2.
Christian Engelhart was seventh aboard the #1 GRT – Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini, ahead of the #991 Paradine Competition BMW M4 GT3 Evo of Augusto Farfus and the #35 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo of Henrique Chaves.
Fastest in the Gold Cup, in 10th overall, was the #777 AlManar Racing by WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo, following a 1:34.232 from Al Faisal Al Zubair. Al Zubair’s time was the quickest after the opening 40 minutes of the session, which was reserved for Silver and Bronze-rated drivers.
The #52 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari completed the most laps, 52. This was two more than the #1 Lamborghini, #24 Steller Motorsport Corvette Z06 GT3.R and #777 BMW.
It was a clean session, with no Red Flag interruptions and all 41 cars banking laps.
Pre-Qualifying
Later in the afternoon, it was Eddie Cheever III who led Pre-Qualifying in the #93 Ziggo Sport Tempesta Ferrari 296 GT3.
The Italian set a 1:34.049 on his first flying lap of the session, displacing the #1 GRT – Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 of Christian Engelhart from the top of the times.
Engelhart’s 1:34.115 would be quick enough to hold onto second, with Dennis Marschall completing a Bronze Cup sweep of the top three places in the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari.
Championship leader Lucas Auer was fourth fastest in the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, ahead of the Silver Cup-leading #52 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari of Marcos Siebert.
Siebert’s co-driver Jef Machiels brought out the first Red Flag of Pre-Qualifying, with an incident in the first sector just before the 20-minute mark. The #52 Ferrari was unable to continue in the session.
Dylan Pereira was sixth fastest in the #66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, ahead of the #26 Sainteloc Racing Audi of Ivan Klymenko. The #26 Audi triggered a second, brief Red Flag due to a spin.
GRT – Grasser Racing Team’s Luca Engstler was eighth fastest in the #63 Lamborghini, with the #9 Boutsen VDS AMG GT3 Evo of Maxime Martin finishing ninth.
The Top 10 was completed by the Gold Cup-leading #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari of Thierry Vermeulen.
The fastest times all came at the beginning of the 60-minute session, with no changes in the Top 10 places after the restart following the brief Red Flag interruption.
Three cars shared the honour of completing the most laps, 28. These were the #50 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari, #24 Steller Motorsport Corvette Z06 GT3.R and #97 Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3.R (992).
This means that Steller Motorsport leads the Friday mileage charts, with Matisse Lismont and Jesse Salmenautio completing a combined 78 laps around the Dutch venue across both sessions.
Running continues at Circuit Zandvoort tomorrow, with Qualifying 1 at 10:00 CEST and the opening race of the weekend at 15:00 CEST.
Images courtesy of SRO/JEP
