Marciello Tops Rain-Soaked Paid Practice at Suzuka

Photo: Dirk Bogaerts/SRO

Raffaele Marciello led the way in a rain-soaked Paid Practice session for Sunday’s Suzuka 10 Hours.

The Italian reeled off a best lap of 2:14.076 in the No. 999 GruppeM Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 in the two-hour session, which was marred by heavy showers and limited run time for competitors.

The time was 0.496 seconds quicker than the No. 88 JLOC Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, which was second.

The No. 25 Team WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo driven by Dries Vanthoor, Kelvin van der Linde and Frederic Vervisch completed the top-three, meanwhile.

Thirty five of the 36 entries took part in the optional session which saw several stoppages.

It included an incident for the No. 43 Strakka Racing Mercedes of Adrian Henry D’Silva, which resulted in a red flag for the car to be brought back to the paddock.

Heavier showers, meanwhile, hampered track activity for much of the final hour of the session.

Paid Practice was preceded by a Bronze-only session, which was paced by the No. 60 LM corsa Porsche 911 GT3 R in equally challenging conditions.

Free Practice 1 gets underway at 2:10 p.m. local time.

RESULTS: Paid Practice

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John