Audi driver Dries Vanthoor clocked the fastest lap of FP2 at the season finale, and ended Friday with the fastest time of the day.
The Nürburgring sprint circuit had completely dried out by the second practice session, and the driver from Team WRT set a blistering time of 1:27.354 minutes to go 0.8 seconds faster than Porsche works driver Mathieu Jaminet’s (SSR Porsche) best lap of the morning session. “It went pretty well in the second practice,” said Vanthoor, who alternates at the wheel of the R8 LMS with Charles Weerts. “I had a little incident in FP1, so it is good to bounce back and go fastest. However, it is obviously still early in the weekend. We don’t often drive in such cold conditions, but it is the same for everyone. We have had rather a difficult season, but we have been on an upward trend of late. Our goal is to end the season with a win.”
After third place in the opening practice session, defending champion Christian Engelhart and Porsche works driver Thomas Preining this time went second fastest. Preining was 0.237 seconds slower than Vanthoor. They were followed in third place by the best of the title contenders, third-placed Jaminet and Michael Ammermüller. Jaminet set a time of 1:27.811 minutes in FP2. In fourth place, with a time of 1:27.873 minutes, were Markus Winkelhock and Florian Spengler (Car Collection-Audi), who leads the Pirelli Trophy competition. Fifth place went to Igor Waliłko and Jules Gounon in a Mercedes-AMG run by the Zakspeed Mobil Krankenkasse Racing team.
Championship leaders Ricardo Feller and Christopher Mies were this time sixth in the Montaplast by Land-Motorsport Audi, just ahead of Luca Stolz and Maro Engel (Mercedes-AMG Team Toksport WRT), who are second in the table and trail the leaders by just four points.
“I am happy,” said former champion Mies. “We did not use any new tyres, so I am satisfied with the time. Ricardo is a good qualifier. I hope we are in the top three tomorrow. Mercedes and Porsche tend to have a slight advantage here, so I would say that a top-five finish would be good.”
Mercedes-AMG works driver Luca Stolz is predicting a close title race: “We are still looking for our first win of the season, so it would be cool to finally get a victory here at what is the home circuit for the team and me. However, it will not be easy in these low temperatures. It is hard to predict how the weather will develop. The goal for the title race has to be to finish ahead of the Land Audi. However, Land is always strong here, and so is the SSR Porsche, of course.”