Salaquarda, who shares the cockpit of an Audi R8 LMS with ISR team-mate Frank Stippler, posted a best time of 1:24.537 minutes in a close session which saw 19 cars within one second of each other. Fastest on the day, however, was Corvette driver David Jahn who posted a time of nearly half a second less in the first free practice session before lunch when conditions were sunny and therefore warmer.

"On the basis of this afternoon's result, things are looking good for us," said Stippler. "But we can't really know how much the other teams were revealing. We spent much of today on new tyres because we lost a whole day in the pre-season test as the result of a fire. Anyway, now we'll have to see how things sort themselves out tomorrow. But for today, that was OK."

Second fastest in Session 2 were Porsche drivers Timo Bernhard and Klaus Bachler of Küs Team75 Bernhard with a time of 1:24.681 minutes ahead of Patric Niederhauser and Kelvin van der Linde of HCB-Rutronik Racing in another Audi.

Fourth place in the afternoon for Daniel Keilwitz and Maxime Martin, just 0.3 seconds off the pace of the leader, showed the potential of the new Aston Martin Vantage GT3. Completing the Top Five was the MRS-BMW M6 GT3 driven by Jens Klingmann and Nicolai Sylvest.