Hankey Puts Ram Racing on Top in Pre-Qualifying

Photo: SRO/Dirk Bogaerts

Euan Hankey took Ram Racing to the top of the timesheets in Pre-Qualifying for the Blancpain GT Series Endurance Cup round at Silverstone on Saturday afternoon.

The Pro-Am Cup-entered No. 49 Mercedes-AMG GT3 set a best lap time of 1:57.447 to secure the top position by 0.288 seconds.

Hankey shares the car with Salih Yoluc and Darren Burke.

Strakka Racing made it a Mercedes 1-2 with its No. 42 car driven by Lewis Williamson, while an early flier from Christian Klein kept Emil Frey Lexus Racing near the top of the timings for most of the session, finishing third.

The top nine positions were all filled by front-engined cars with Mercedes, Lexus, BMW and Aston Martin all represented.

AKKA ASP led the way in both the Silver and Am Cups.

The session had two short Full Course Yellow periods, one as a test of the system and another to retrieve a cone, but there were no major incidents throughout the 90 minutes of running.

Qualifying will take place at 9:45 a.m. on Sunday ahead of the race at 3 p.m. local time. Both sessions will be streamed live on the series’ website and GT World YouTube channel.

UPDATE: Ram Racing later had all of its times from Free Practice and Pre-Qualifying deleted as its Lambda setting was below the minimum figure required by the Balance of Performance. 

This change only affects the No. 49 Mercedes-AMG GT3 and promotes Strakka Racing to the top of the times in Pre-Qualifying.

RESULTS: Pre-Qualifying

Jake Kilshaw

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