For a long time, though, it looked as if the best time of the afternoon would again go to Porsche driver Matteo Cairoli. Ten minutes into the faster of the two free practice sessions, the Italian posted a benchmark lap of 1:28,108 minutes which lingered at the top of the timesheets until he bested it himself towards the end. With his new fastest laps of 1:27.950 minutes and then 1:27.933 minutes, the 20-year-old was the first contestant to crack the 1:28-minute mark. But just before the end of the session, Götz knocked Cairoli off his perch with a time of 1:27.876 minutes.

"We have good balance," said Götz. "But we had that at Zandvoort, too, and as we saw there, it’s no use being ahead in free practice if things don’t go right in qualifying. I hope we have better luck this time. But anyway, the Nürburgring is normally a happy hunting ground for us, and I think we are good and ready. Consequently, we’ve set our sights fairly high for the weekend."

In third place behind runners-up Cairoli and Adrien de Leener were Luca Stolz and Maro Engel (both Toksport WRT) in a Mercedes-AMG GT3. Their deficit was 0.087 seconds. They were followed by the Team BKK Mobil Oil Racing Mercedes-AMG driven by Jimmy Eriksson and Jeroen Bleekemolen.

Dennis Marschall, who shares the cockpit of an R8 LMS with Carrie Schreiner, finished Friday’s free practice as the fastest of the Audi drivers. Just sixteen thousandths behind and in sixth place were their HCB Rutronik Racing team-mates and current championship leaders, Patric Niederhauser and Kelvin van der Linde.