The big Motorsport Festival at the Lausitzring is under way. Christian Engelhart posted fastest time in the first free practice session. The 29-year-old, sharing a Lamborghini Huracán GT3 fielded by GRT Grasser-Racing-Team with Swiss driver Rolf Ineichen, set the fastest lap time of 1.22.641 minutes in the very first stint.

The Porsche 911 GT3 R of Martin Ragginger and Robert Renauer (both Precote Herberth Motorsport) came home in second place with a deficit of a mere three hundredths of a second. Third place went to another Porsche prepared by KÜS TEAM75 Bernhard with David Jahn and the Italian Matteo Cairoli, who is making his ADAC GT Masters debut here at the Lausitzring.

Positions four, five, six and seven were taken by Patrick Assenheimer (24, DEU) and Dominik Schwager (39, DEU, both Callaway Competition) in the best-placed Corvette C7 GT3 R, championship leaders Connor De Phillippi (23, USA) and Christopher Mies (27, DEU, both Montaplast by Land-Motorsport) in the Audi R8 LMS, Daniel Dobitsch (31, A) and Edward Sandström (37, S, both kfzteile24 APR Motorsport) - also in an Audi - and Luca Stolz (20, DEU) and series newcomer Mirko Bortolotti (26, I, both GRT Grasser Racing team) in another Lambo.

Finishing behind title defenders Sebastian Asch (29, DEU) and Luca Ludwig (27, DEU, both AMG Team Zakspeed) in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 came Florian Stoll (34, DEU) and Laurens Vanthoor reserve driver Robin Frijns (24, NL, both kfzteile24 APR Motorsport) in the Audi and the Porsche pairing of Marvin Dienst (19, DEU) & Christopher Zanella (26, CH, both bigFM Racing Team Schütz Motorsport) to complete the Top Ten. Once again at the Lausitzring, the field was very evenly matched. Just a single second covered the top 20 cars.

Friday's ADAC GT Masters schedule will feature a number of further sessions with drivers taking part in a one-hour second practice session at 10:50 am before getting down to serious business in qualifying at 3:10 pm. Grid positions for the two races on Saturday and Sunday which start at 1:08 pm on both days, will be decided in two twenty-minute qualifying sessions.