Mies Fastest in Zolder FP1 as Leonard Crashes

Photo: Olivier Beroud Images

Belgian Audi Club Team WRT has topped an incident-filled first Blancpain GT Series session of the season with Christopher Mies going quickest in Free Practice 1 at Zolder on Friday morning.

The German posted a best time of 1:29.720 in his No. 1 Audi R8 LMS GT3 to lead an Audi 1-2, 0.085 seconds ahead of Markus Winkelhock’s Sainteloc Racing car.

Ezequiel Perez Companc was third-quickest in the No. 19 Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 while the Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 of Giaccomo Piccini was fourth.

Attempto Racing rounded out the top five with its No. 66 Audi driven by Kelvin van der Linde.

Winkelhock secured Pro-Am class honors, while the No. 3 WRT Audi of Alessio Picariello and Gilles Magnus topped the Silver Cup.

The session was red-flagged a few times, with the longest for around ten minutes after reigning Sprint Cup champion Stuart Leonard crashed his No. 17 WRT Audi. 

The car appeared to only have cosmetic damage to the right-front corner.

Alexey Korneev later beached the SMP Racing by AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the gravel at Turn 1, bringing out the red flag again towards the end of the session.

Free Practice 2 is scheduled for 2:20 p.m. local time. 

RESULTS: Free Practice 1

Jake Kilshaw

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