Twenty cars covered by one second and six different car brands represented in the top-7 ! The Friday free practice sessions yielded an exciting result ahead of qualifying and th GT Open 500 race of Sunday. In perfect late-summer conditions, the Team Motopark Mercedes proved fastest, with car #71 of Christian Mansell and Maxi Götz posting the best time (1.45.299) in session 2, ahead of #28 of Marcelo Ramírez-Dominik Baumann, 0s330 off with what was the best time of session 1.
The Villorba Corse Lamborghini of Leonardo Moncini-Rodrigo Testa, which won Race 1 at Hockenheim, was third (+0s338), ahead of the Greystone GT McLaren of Zac Meakin-Dean Macdonald (+0s477) and the fastest Pro-Am car, the Blackthorn Aston Martin of Charlie Bateman-Henrique Chaves (+0s485).
The ZRS Porsche of Pietro Armanni-Alex Fontana took sixth (+0s544) ahead of the first Ferrari, the AF Corse car of Yaroslav Veselaho-Lorenzo Ferrari ( +0s583). Another AF Ferrari, the one of Ray Acosta-Marco Bonanomi was first in Am and 11th overall.
Nikita Mazepin, in his return to high-level racing in Europe, was 13th in the third Motopark Mercedes, shared with César Gazeau.
33 cars took the track, with the late-entry addition of the ASR Lambo of Michael Fischbaum-Milos Pavlovic, while the PTT Racing BMW had to withdraw following a massive crash in Thursday’s private test, when Darmetko was collected and sent to the wall at Ascari by the spinning Norik Ferrari of Shibata, whose car was also destroyed but could be replaced. Both drivers were unhurt in the incident.