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Vanthoor Leads Opening Practice at Barcelona

Dries Vanthoor, WRT lead the way in opening Blancpain GT session at Barcelona…

Photo: Dirk Bogaerts/SRO

Dries Vanthoor set the pace for Belgian Audi Club Team WRT in the opening Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup session of the weekend at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya on Saturday morning.

The Belgian posted a best time of 1:44.203 early on in his No. 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 that he shares with Christopher Mies and Alex Riberas. 

The session was red-flagged twice for separate incidents, losing around 30 minutes of running in the 90-minute session.

AF Corse’s Lorenzo Bontempelli hit the wall soon after the green flag, halting running for 25 minutes, while Remon Vos got his Ram Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 stuck in the gravel trap late in the session.

Black Falcon’s No. 4 Mercedes was the second quickest car with a time 0.237 seconds off the pace from Endurance Cup title contenders Maro Engel, Yelmer Buurman and Luca Stolz.

Two of Strakka Racing’s Mercedes were third and fourth, ahead of the No. 25 Sainteloc Racing Audi in fifth. 

Strakka’s No. 42 car, in fourth, was the best-placed Pro-Am contender, while Barwell Motorsport’s No. 78 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 led the Silver Cup from seventh overall.

Garage 59 led the way in the Am Cup with its No. 188 McLaren 650S GT3, meanwhile.

Pre-Qualifying will get underway at 4:45 p.m.

RESULTS: Free Practice

Jake Kilshaw is a UK-based journalist. He is a graduate of Politics and International Relations.

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