Mercedes-AMG driver Jules Gounon (Zakspeed Mobil Krankenkasse Racing) set the fastest lap time in Thursday’s test ahead of the final weekend of the German GT Championship at the Nürburgring.

Two sessions – one in the morning, one in the afternoon, amounting to a total time of four hours – gave the teams the opportunity to prepare for the season finale. In the first session, it was two title contenders who set the pace: Porsche works driver Mathieu Jaminet, who lies third together with last year’s champion Michael Ammermüller ahead of the final race weekend, was the fastest, setting a time of 1:28.003 in the SSR Porsche. He was followed by championship leaders Ricardo Feller/Christopher Mies with 1:28.347 minutes. Third place went to fellow Audi drivers Charles Weerts and Dries Vanthoor (Team WRT).

In the afternoon, it was Mercedes-AMG works driver Gounon, who shares the car with Igor Walilko, who set the day’s fastest lap time of 1:26.950 minutes. “The car felt good in all conditions,” said former champion Gounon. “It was very wet and cold in the morning, then the track dried out later, but it remained very cold. We did a lot of work on the set-up for low temperatures, as it will be cold for the two qualifying sessions on Saturday and Sunday morning. We are outsiders in the title race this weekend, so we will push hard again and see what happens.”

This time, it was the fourth-placed pairing of Raffaele Marciello and Maximilian Buhk from Mann-Filter Team Landgraf – HTP/WWR who were second fastest, just 15 thousandths of a second slower. Third place went to defending champion Christian Engelhart and Thomas Preining from Küs Team Bernhard in the best-placed Porsche, courtesy of their time of 1:27.166 minutes.

The ADAC GT Masters continues on Friday with two 45-minute free practice sessions, before the two qualifying sessions and the races on Saturday and Sunday.