Jordan Pepper and Dylan Pereira shared the honours on the opening day of running for the penultimate round of the 2025 GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup at Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours.
After Pepper led Free Practice in the #63 GRT – Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo, Pereira was fastest in a wet and dark Pre-Qualifying aboard the #66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.
Free Practice
Jordan Pepper was quickest in an incident-free Free Practice at Magny-Cours for GRT – Grasser Racing Team.
The 24 hours of Spa winner set a 1:37.192 just after the halfway mark of the 100-minute session aboard the #63 Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2, surpassing the previous benchmark from Boutsen VDS’ Luca Stolz.
The 0.188-second margin between Pepper and Stolz was subsequently filled by a pair of Porsche 911 GT3.Rs (992), demoting the #9 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo to fourth by the checkered flag.
Ricardo Feller ended Free Practice second fastest aboard the Bronze Cup-entered #80 Lionspeed GP entry, only 0.037 seconds behind Pepper. Rutronik Racing’s #96 Porsche of Sven Müller was third, a further 0.020 seconds behind.
Fifth, and quickest in the Gold Cup, was Chris Lulham aboard the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3. The British driver set a 1:37.472 to lead the opening 40 minutes of the session, which were reserved for Silver and Bronze-graded drivers.
Sixth went to Arthur Leclerc in the #50 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari, ahead of Lorens Lecertua in the Silver Cup-leading #26 Sainteloc Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II and Maro Engel in the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG.
Arthur Rougier was ninth aboard the #112 CSA Racing McLaren GT3 Evo, with Ricky Collard completing the top 10 in the #76 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini. Collard’s #76 Lamborghini, alongside the #81 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG, led the mileage charts with 48 laps completed.
The championship-leading #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo never threatened the top of the timesheets, languishing as low as 39th in the 40-car field before Charles Weerts improved to 30th in the closing minutes.
Pre-Qualifying
Tresor Attempto Racing’s Dylan Pereira was fastest in an entertaining Pre-Qualifying session at Magny-Cours, which saw the top of the leaderboard change hands over 25 times.
Pereira set a 1:40.837 on his final flying lap of the session in the #66 Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, going 0.404 seconds faster than the #64 HRT Ford Performance Mustang GT3 of Romain Andriolo.
18-year-old Andriolo had himself only moved to the top of the timesheets inside the final two minutes, reeling off a pair of consecutive outright fastest lap times to give the Mustang GT3 its best GT World Challenge Europe session result to date.
The HRT Ford Performance Mustang squad enters this weekend on the back foot, as the only team to have missed the pre-event test. The test, incidentally, was led by Kessel Racing’s Dennis Marschall in the #74 Ferrari 296 GT3.
Pre-Qualifying was characterised by a drying track, as over 14 seconds of lap time was found across the hour-long affair, which took place almost entirely at night after delays during the support programme saw the session start 15 minutes late.
Lionspeed GP’s pair of Porsche 911 GT3.Rs (992) ended up third and fourth, with Bastian Buus in the #89 besting the #80 of Ricardo Feller. Feller, alongside co-driver Gabriel Rindone, completed the most laps of the session, 30.
Fifth fastest was Loris Spinelli in the #85 Imperiale Racing Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2, whilst Eddie Cheever III made it five Bronze Cup runners in the top six aboard the #93 Ziggo Sport Tempesta Ferrari, with Pro Cup entrant Andriolo the outlier.
Drivers’ championship leader Kelvin van der Linde was seventh in the #32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 Evo, ahead of the #14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari of Konsta Lappalainen and Simon Gachet aboard the #111 CSA Racing McLaren GT3 Evo.
Barwell Motorsport’s pair of Lamborghinis were 10th and 11th, with Sandy Mitchell edging out Gold Cup-topper Ricky Collard, whilst Kobe Pauwels completed the top 12 in the Silver Cup-leading #21 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 Evo.
Several teams who enjoyed long spells near the top of the times fell back in the closing minutes, such as the #96 Rutronik Racing Porsche, which ended up in 23rd. Patric Niederhauser was on blistering form in the middle of the session, reeling off a series of outright fastest times as track conditions started to improve.
All 40 cars contested Pre-Qualifying, which was clean throughout, although several teams waited until conditions started improving before venturing out of their garages. Garage 59, GRT – Grasser Racing Team, HRT Ford Performance and Sainteloc Racing were amongst those delayed in joining the on-track action.
Running at Circuit de Nevers Magny-Cours continues tomorrow, with Qualifying 1 at 14:45 CEST setting the grid for Race 1 at 20:30 CEST.
Images courtesy of SRO/JEP
