After setting the fastest time in the morning practice session, Christian Engelhart (GRT Grasser Racing Team) repeated the feat in the afternoon. The 29-year-old actually went one better on the dune circuit at Zandvoort, posting the absolute best time of the day at 1:39.514 minutes with his team-mate Rolf Ineichen (38) looking on.

In second place by the vanishingly narrow margin of under a tenth of a second were their GRT Grasser Racing team-mates Luca Stolz (21, DEU) and Mirko Bortolotti (26, I) ahead of the number 8 Bentley Continental driven by Christer Jöns and Fabian Hamprecht (Bentley Team ABT). Fourth place went to the Lamborghini pairing of Norbert Siedler (33, A) and Jaap van Lagen (39, NL, both HB Racing WDS Bau).

Defending GT Masters champion Luca Ludwig spun off the track in the first third of the one-hour session and crashed into the barrier. That was the end of the day´s practice for the Mercedes-AMG with the number one on its bonnet.

At the end of the training session, Nicolai Sylvest (19, DK) and Nikolaj Rogivue (20, CH, both AMG team Zakspeed) were ranked fifth in their Mercedes-AMG ahead of an Audi trio: Markus Pommer (25, DEU) and Xavier Maassen (36, NL, Aust Motorsport), Mikaela Åhlin-Kottulinsky (23, S) and Marco Bonanomi (31, I, both Aust Motorsport), Philip Geipel (29, Plauen) and Rahel Frey (30, CH, both YACO Racing).

The current championship leaders Jules Gounon (21, F) and Daniel Keilwitz (27, DEU, both Callaway Competition) placed their Corvette C7 ninth ahead of the Lamborghini driven by Patrick Kujala (20, FIN) and Miloš Pavlović (33, SRB, both Bonaldi Motorsport).

On Saturday morning, the drivers get down to the serious business of qualifying. During the twenty-minute session commencing at 09:20, they will be battling it out for the best grid positions for the first race. Full live coverage of the race starts at 13:00 CEST on the free-to-air TV channel SPORT1.