Engel Leads Mercedes 1-2 in Magny-Cours Free Practice

Maro Engel set the pace for Haupt Racing Team as Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evos finished first and second in Free Practice for this weekend’s GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup meeting at Magny-Cours.

Engel clocked a time of 1:36.694 aboard the No. 4 Mercedes that the German driver shares with Luca Stolz, beating fellow AMG driver Raffaele Marciello by 0.020 seconds.

Mercedes-AMG was denied a 1-2-3 result by Giancarlo Fisichella, who set the No. 92 Pro-Am class Sky Tempesta Racing Ferrari 488 GT3 Evo 2020 in third place overall.

The Italian’s time of 1:36.998 narrowly put the AF Corse-run car ahead of the Silver Cup-class Toksport WRT Mercedes-AMG of Oscar Tunjo, who produced a time of 1:37.041.

Dries Vanthoor completed the top five in the championship-leading Team WRT Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo that the Belgian is sharing with Charles Weerts.

Vanthoor and Weerts won two of the three races held on the season-opening weekend at Misano last month, while Marciello and Timur Boguslavskiy took the other win for AKKA-ASP.

Giacomo Altoe went sixth-fastest overall in the No. 163 Emil Frey Racing Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo with a time of 1:37.099, while Kelvin van der Linde was seventh in the other WRT Pro-class Audi.

A total of 22 cars took part in Free Practice after CMR’s No. 108 Bentley Continental GT3 was badly damaged in a fire yesterday.

It’s understood that the French team is sourcing a replacement chassis to be on-track for Pre-Qualifying which takes place this evening at 9:15 p.m. local time (3:15 p.m. EST).

RESULTS: Free Practice