The Prototype Cup Germany drivers took on the first qualifying session at the Motorsport Arena in glorious sunshine. It was Laurents Hörr (25/Gerlingen, Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport) who set the best lap time, making it round the track in Magdeburg Börde in 1:18.431 minutes. 0.341 seconds behind the German was Oscar Tunjo (27/COL, van ommen racing by DataLab), with current championship leader Markus Pommer (32 / Untereisesheim, Racing Experience) following in third place. Elia Sperandio (17/CHE, BHK Motorsport) and Max van der Snel (19/NLD, More Motorsport by Reiter) completed the top five. The first LMP3 race of the weekend gets underway at 16:35 CEST on Saturday.
In the second free practice session, Laurents Hörr already looked well prepared for qualifying, in which he then confirmed the good impression. “I was already feeling optimistic that qualifying would go well after getting P1 in the free practice session. And after my first fast qualifying lap with a time of 1:19.8 I had a good feeling, particularly because I was also in a good position on the track to complete fast laps. Overall, qualifying went smoothly.”
Unlike Hörr, Markus Pommer was unable to find a good position on the track, so was unable to complete many fast laps. “I had one free lap, the rest of the time I kept running into the same drivers. I used my first, and ultimately only, free lap to get a safe lap time, it was only after that that I wanted to attack and take more risks. I’m confident that our car could have done better than 1:19.0. But at least I’m in third place, which isn’t bad.” Oscar Tunjo qualified between Hörr and Pommer. “It really wasn’t easy to find a free lap here on this pretty short, narrow track at Oschersleben. We also had issues with our Duqueine, possible an electronics issue. But second place is still a good starting position for the race this afternoon.”
A good two and a half minutes before the end of qualifying, Sebastian von Gartzen (30/Butzbach, Konrad Motorsport) came off the track, which saw race control initially red flag the session, which was then not resumed.