Audi Ends Paul Ricard Prologue on Top

Audi ended the two-day GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Prologue at Paul Ricard at the top of the timesheets, thanks to Christopher Haase’s effort in the No. 84 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II.

A further four hours of testing was completed on Thursday morning in France and Haase’s 1:54.352 posted at the mid-point of that session was three tenths faster than Thomas Preining’s pacesetting lap of 1:54.682 from Wednesday in the No. 80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo.

Haase’s time was, however, still around seven tenths adrift from the fastest lap registered during last year’s Prologue.

Porsches again occupied several places towards the top of the combined timesheet with Alessio Picariello’s Thursday lap of 1:54.635 in the No. 2 Boutsen VDS machine enough for him to go fractionally quicker than Riccardo Feller in the Lionspeed car, which lowered its best time to a 1:54.641.

Fourth place on the leaderboard went to another Porsche, this time the Bronze Cup-pacesetting No. 91 Herberth Motorsport entry of Robert Renauer, who clocked a 1:54.708.

The best of the Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos was fifth on the combined times with Fabian Schiller going a tenth quicker than on Wednesday to post a 1:54.723 aboard the No. 17 GetSpeed machine.

Rounding out the top six was the first of the cars that did not improve its time on Thursday, the No. 23 RJN McLaren 720S GT3 Evo of Ben Doerr, whose 1:54.762 topped the Wednesday afternoon session and was also the fastest lap from a Silver Cup crew.

Loek Hartog’s 1:54.804 from Wednesday in the No. 97 Rutronik Porsche was good enough for seventh overall, while Jules Gounon’s 1:54.844 in the No. 3 Verstappen Racing-badged 2 Seas Motorsport-run Mercedes-AMG was another time from the opening day in the top 10.

Two more Wednesday laps rounded out the Prologue top 10: Jayden Kelly’s effort aboard the No. 44 Greystone McLaren and Alex Fontana’s afternoon lap in the second Lionspeed car, which made it five Porsches in the top 10.

The fastest time for a Gold Cup crew was the 1:54.963 that Alex Aka managed in the No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi on Thursday, a lap that was good enough for 11th overall.

Thursday’s running was twice interrupted by crashes, with Jamie Day taken to the medical center for precautionary checks after hitting the Turn 7 barriers in the No. 34 Walkenhorst Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo in the first hour.

A Turn 2 accident for Mari Boya aboard the No. 18 Aston he is sharing with current and former Formula 1 drivers Lance Stroll and Roberto Merhi also brought out the red flags.

Attention now turns to practice ahead of this weekend’s six-hour Endurance Cup season-opener at Paul Ricard, with the first session due to get under way on Friday at 2:25 p.m. local time (8:25 a.m. EST).