It was a torrid Friday of free practice at the Circuit of Barcelona-Catalunya, and the two sessions yielded an unexpected result, with five Mercedes in the top six.
Fastest of the day was the Motopark of Dutch pair Remon Vos-Yelmar Buurman, with a time of 1.39.750 posted in the morning session. Second in the rankings after topping a great part of the morning session, and breaking the predominance of the Mercedes, was the debuting Steller Motorsport Corvette Z06R of Canadian brothers Daniel and Adam Ali, 0s640 away.
They were followed by a quator of AMGs led by the GetSpeed car of Steve Jans-Aaron Walker (+0s757). Another car appearing for the first time this year, fielded by returnee 2 Seas Motorsport, with Charles Daxson and McKenzy Cresswell (+0s889) was fifth, with the SPS car of Dexter Müller-Yannick Mettler (+1s139) in sixth.
Michele Rugolo and Gino Forgione (AF Corse Ferrari) were again fastest in Am, and 18th overall, while the only incident worth of note was the off-track in session one of Ameerh Naran in the GetSpeed by Vimana car at turn 10, ended with limited damage and a red flag.
There were some last-minute changes to the entry list:
- Ameerh Naran, precisely, will race alone in the #108 GetSpeed by Vimana Mercedes, and so will do Luis Michael Dörrbecker in the #28 BDR Grupo Prom Mercedes;
- Charlie Hollings will be in this occasion the teammate of Mark Sansom in the Garage 59 McLaren;
- Matteo Cairoli will make his second appearance this year, subbing for Lukas Dunner, who fell ill, in the #65 Motopark Mercedes alongside Heiko Neumann;
- The drivers nominated by Oregon Team for this round are former Euroformula Open star Francesco Simonazzi, who makes his GT3 debut in the #63 Lamborghini Huracán, and Portugal’s Rodrigo Testa, freshly crowned Italian Endurance GT champion, in the #19 car shared with Robin Rogalski.