Raffaele Marciello (27/I) of Mann-Filter Team Landgraf set the first time to beat at the fourth event of the ADAC GT Masters season at the Nürburgring. The recent winner of the 24-hour race at Spa-Francorchamps drove the fastest lap in the first free practice session, with a time of 1:26.455 minutes, and celebrated a good start in the Eifel region with his new team-mate Maro Engel (36/Monte Carlo) in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 #48.
Behind them, Ayhancan Güven (24/TR) and Christian Engelhart (35/Starnberg) in the Porsche 911 GT3 R #91, trailing by 0.347 seconds, were the only other pairing to stay under the 1:27.000-minute mark. Third place in the first session went to Maximilian Paul (22/Dresden) and Marco Mapelli (35/I) of Paul Motorsport in the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo with car number 71. The Jan Marschalkowski (19/Inning) and Luca Stolz (27/Brachbach) duo of Mercedes-AMG Team ZVO steered the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo #8 into fourth place, and in fifth place was the combination Elias Seppänen (18/FIN) and Frank Bird (22/GB) in the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo with car number 84, of Mann-Filter Team Landgraf.
In cool temperatures of 17 degrees and on a wet track, many teams started out cautiously on Friday morning, first testing the track conditions with rain tyres. After several laps, the slicks came out and the lap times on the 3.629-kilometre track got better and better. A good seven minutes before the end, Raffaele Marciello ousted Christian Engelhart, who was in front of him, from first place, and clinched the first best time of the fourth stop on the German GT Championship tour at the Nürburgring.
