Mercedes-AMG driver Raffaele Marciello set the fastest time of the second ADAC GT Masters practice session in Hockenheim.
The Italian, who is currently fourth in the table with partner Maximilian Buhk, 18 points off the lead, clocked a fastest lap of 1:38.543 minutes. Shortly before that lap, he had moved to the top of the timing sheet with a time of 1:38.686 minutes. “First place obviously feels good,” said the Italian. “When you are the fastest, it generally means that everything is going well. However, it only really counts tomorrow in qualifying. The goal is to qualify as near to the front of the grid as possible. When it comes to the title race, the key this weekend is to score more points than our rivals. We will do our best.”
Second place, with a time of 1:38.708 minutes, went to local favourite Markus Winkelhock, who alternates with Florian Spengler – another Swabian and the current leader in the Pirelli Trophy competition – at the wheel of an Audi R8 LMS for Car Collection Motorsport. Behind them, fellow Audi drivers Charles Weerts/Dries Vanthoor from Team WRT took third place. Their fastest lap: 1:38.752 minutes. Fourth place went to defending champion Christian Engelhart and Thomas Preining (Küs Team Bernhard, 1:38.846 minutes) in the fastest Porsche 911 GT3 R. Jusuf Owega and Patric Niederhauser (Phoenix Racing) rounded off the top five in another Audi.
The best time of the day was set by Lamborghini works driver Franck Perera, whose time of 1:38.206 minutes in FP1 was just 0.3 seconds faster than Marciello. “It has been a good day. It is quite cold, so we had to make adjustments to the set-up we used for yesterday’s test. However, the team has done a good job. We are quite happy. The opposition is very tough again, but we want to achieve the best result possible, in order to help Lamborghini in the title race. My goal is to challenge for pole position again.”