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Intercontinental GT Challenge

FFF Driver Caldarelli Quickest in Spa Free Practice

FFF Lamborghini driver Caldarelli sets early pace at Spa during Free Practice…

Photo: Dirk Bogaerts/SRO

Orange 1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini driver Andrea Caldarelli set the pace in Thursday’s opening full-field practice session for the Total 24 Hours of Spa.

Caldarelli posted a time of 2:19.030 in the No. 63 Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo that he shares with Dennis Lind and Marco Mapelli to lead the 90-minute run.

The Italian moved to the top of the leaderboard in the closing minutes of the session after the field was released from the second of two brief red flag periods.

The first was for a car going off at Bruxelles while the second concerned the No. 107 CMR Bentley Continental GT3 which struck the wall at Les Combes.

Nick Tandy held the top spot going into the second stoppage but his ROWE Racing Porsche was driven down to fifth as other Pro competitors made improvements.

Among those to do so was Philipp Eng, who brought the No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport BMW M6 GT3 up to second, 0.146 seconds shy of Caldarelli’s benchmark.

Maro Engel lapped third-quickest in the No. 4 Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo, while Matt Campbell was fourth for the GPX Racing Porsche squad.

A late improvement from Dominik Baumann saw the No. 20 SPS Automotive Performance Mercedes-AMG rise to sixth in the order and take the Pro-Am class lead.

Silver Cup was led by Ricardo Sanchez, whose 2:19.912 flyer set the Madpanda Motorsport Mercedes-AMG at the head of the category.

Fastest in Am Cup was the No. 918 Herberth Motorsport Porsche.

Next up is Pre-Qualifying practice which is due to start at 3:15 p.m. CEST (9:15 a.m).

RESULTS: Free Practice

Daniel Lloyd is a UK-based reporter for Sportscar365, covering the FIA World Endurance Championship, Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS and the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, among other series.

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