Patric Niederhauser was the fastest contestant in the morning session with a time of 1:39.541 minutes. In the afternoon, it was the turn of his partner Kelvin van der Linde to take the wheel of the Audi R8 LMS fielded by local favourites Rutronik Racing; he topped the timesheets with a 1:39.327, which was also the best time of the whole day. “We were very good right from the start,” said the South African Audi sports car specialist. “I was surprised that the basic setup worked so well. We then ticked off a few points on our list, and they worked out well too. Let’s see how things go tomorrow in qualifying. It will obviously be significantly cooler then. We have to see how the car and the tyres react. I think we are at our best when it is warm. There is still a bit of a question mark when conditions are cooler.”

Second fastest in FP2 and on the day was Formula 2 graduate Dorian Boccolacci. The Frenchman, who drives a Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo for Team Zakspeed BKK Mobil Oil Racing, posted a lap of 1:39.409 minutes right at the end of the session. Boccolacci is partnered by Austria’s Mick Wishofer.

Only 0.035 seconds behind was the T3-HRT-Bentley driven by Constantin Schöll and Jordan Pepper. Pepper led the field until shortly before the end of the second practice session. Sven Müller and Robert Renauer of Precote Herberth Motorsport finished fourth, the same result as in the morning. Rounding off the Top Five were Indy Dontje and Maximilian Götz (Mann-Filter Team HTP-Winward) in their Mercedes-AMG.

Current championship leaders Luca Stolz and Maro Engel (Toksport WRT), who also drive a Mercedes-AMG, finished the day in 25th place. The 32 cars contesting the Hockenheim weekend were all within 2.1 seconds of each other at the end of the afternoon’s 60-minute practice session.