The ADAC GT Masters has returned from the summer break. Early this Friday morning, the Super Sports Car League opened the second half of the season at the Nürburgring. Audi teams kfzteile24 MS RACING and C Abt Racing were quickest off the mark after the return from the summer break. Four Audi R8 LMS ultras were in the lead until shortly before the end of the 60-minute practice session. With just three minutes left on the clock, the Bentley Continental GT3 of Luca Stolz and newcomer Vincent Abril (Bentley Team HTP) split the Audi quartet by muscling into second place. The Continental GT3 with the German and the trainee driver from Monaco, who joins the ADAC GT Masters line-up for the first start at the Nürburgring, ultimately finished a mere 0.023 seconds behind the Audi of Daniel Dobitsch and Edward Sandström (kfzteile24 MS RACING). An exciting weekend is in prospect despite cloudy skies and an air temperature of 18 degrees, as the fastest 18 supercars were covered by just one second in the first session.

Jordan Lee Pepper and Nicki Thiim (C Abt Racing), Florian Stoll/Marc Basseng (kfzteile24 MS Racing), Stefan Wackerbauer and Kelvin van der Linde (C Abt Racing) finished the session third, fourth and fifth respectively. The two sets of newcomers at the Nürburgring, Mercedes-Benz teams CarCollection and ROWE Racing, made a speedy debut: Alexander Mattschull/Renger van der Zande placed fifth in front of the ROWE gullwing of Nico Bastian/Stef Dusseldorp.

Philip Geipel/Rahel Frey (YACO Racing) in the Audi R8 LMS ultra finished practice in eighth position ahead of the Corvette driven by last year's winners at the Nürburgring, Andreas Wirth/Daniel Keilwitz (Callaway Competition). Claudia Hürtgen and Uwe Alzen (BMW Sports Trophy Team Schubert) in the BMW Z4 GT3 came home in tenth place in first practice, finishing ahead of championship leaders Luca Ludwig and Sebastian Asch in the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG (Team Zakspeed).