Boguslavskiy Paces Zandvoort Free Practice; Rossi Crashes

Timur Boguslavskiy led Free Practice for the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup round at Zandvoort, while Valentino Rossi had an accident that caused a red flag.

Boguslavskiy put the No. 89 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo on top of the 25-car leaderboard with a time of 1:34.101 that came halfway into the 80-minute session.

Free Practice was impacted by an early red flag after motorcycle racing champion Rossi went off into the barriers at Turn 3.

The Italian’s No. 46 Team WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II did not take part in the rest of the session, costing it valuable track time at the start of the weekend.

Running resumed with 17 minutes completed, and Aurelien Panis immediately set the provisional pace with a 1:34.185 in the No. 25 Sainteloc Racing Audi.

The Frenchman remained the leader until Boguslavskiy went 0.084 seconds quicker. Panis ended up second overall, a quarter of a second clear of Thomas Drouet who brought the No. 87 Akkodis ASP into the top three with just under one hour completed.

Drouet led the Silver Cup class, one position ahead of Pieter Schothorst who ranked fourth outright in the No. 66 Attempto Racing Audi.

Audi Sport factory drivers Christopher Mies and Benjamin Goethe were fifth and sixth aboard Team WRT Audis, ahead of Sainteloc Audi driver Gilles Magnus.

Three Mercedes-AMGs rounded out the top 10, with Akkodis ASP’s Jules Gounon and Igor Walilko taking eighth and ninth and Sky-Tempesta’s Eddie Cheever in tenth.

Free Practice was bookended by red flags, as a second stoppage occurred in the last couple of minutes due to an unidentified car spraying the track with gravel.

Next up is Pre-Qualifying practice which is due to start at 2:50 p.m. CEST (8:50 a.m. ET).

RESULTS: Free Practice