The second free practice in the Prototype Cup Germany was dominated by the pairing of Laurents Hörr (25/Gerlingen) and Matthias Lüthen (42/Hamburg). The Koiranen Kemppi Motorsport duo was 0.457 seconds faster than Gabriela Jílkova (28/CZE) and Xavier Lloveras (23/ESP, both van ommen racing by DataLab) at Motorsport Arena Oschersleben. Third place went to championship leaders Markus Pommer (32/Untereisesheim) and Gary Hauser (31/LUX, both Racing Experience), followed by Robin Rogalski (22/POL) and Valentino Catalano (17/Westheim, both DKR Engineering), with Max (19/NLD) and Marc van der Snel (52/NLD, both More Motorsport by Reiter) rounding out the top five.
Laurents Hörr is making his first appearance in Oschersleben this weekend, having never before contested a race at the circuit near Magdeburg. “I am improving all the time here,” he said after his first place in FP2. Hörr opted for LMP racing early on in his career and is delighted with the way that LMP3 is developing in Germany. “It is nice that we have had an LMP3 series in my homeland since 2022.” Hörr’s team-mate Matthias Lüthen has been racing in the Prototype Cup Germany since last year’s inaugural season, and the driver from Hamburg is the reigning champion in the Trophy competition. He was at the wheel of the number 72 Duqueine at the start of the second practice session. “It was really tough at first, as the track was really slippery as a result of the rubber from the series that were out there before us. However, it improved with time. He also revealed: “Between Hockenheim and Oschersleben we spent two days testing at the Botniaring in Finland, where we sorted a few things out that had been problematic for us at the season-opener. That test really helped us.”
Gary Hauser also found the track conditions in Oschersleben to be slippery. “That made it really difficult, particularly on the first few laps. However, the session as a whole was very unsettled, with a full course yellow and even a red flag at the end. We had made changes to the car and I think they have taken us in the right direction.” Max van der Snel was also pretty happy: In this morning’s first practice session, we were having problems with the fuel pressure, which meant I was unable to set a fast time. However, we solved that problem in time for the second session and I was able to put my foot down.” The only downer: with just a few minutes of the session remaining, Max’s team-mate Mark van der Snel skidded on gravel, which had been thrown on to the track by another car, and ended up in the gravel bed himself. As this meant that other drivers also had to leave the track, the practice session was initially red flagged, after which it was not restarted.
