Juncadella Sets Sprint Cup Practice Pace at Brands Hatch

Mercedes-AMG driver Dani Juncadella set the pace during practice for the opening round of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Sprint Cup at Brands Hatch.

The No. 3 Verstappen Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo was the only car to dip into the 1:22s with a 1:22.932 that topped the second of the two-hour practice sessions.

Juncadella was just a tenth quicker than Marvin Kirchhoefer in the No. 59 Garage 59 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo, the German having clocked a 1:23.037.

The best of the Porsche 911 GT3 R Evos, the No. 80 Lionspeed GP entry of Ricardo Feller, was fractionally slower on a 1:23.066 in third.

FP2 was a strong session for Porsche squads with the pair of Boutsen VDS entries finishing up fourth and sixth quickest on the combined times, the Gold Cup No. 10 car of Gilles Magnus fractionally faster with a 1:23.175 compared to Morris Schuring’s 1:23.303 in the Pro class No. 2 machine.

Reigning Sprint Cup champion Charles Weerts topped FP1 with a 1:23.260 in the No. 32 Team WRT BMW M4 GT3 EVO and that time was good enough for fifth across the two sessions. That car was one of only a very small number that did not improve its time during FP2.

Rounding out the top six on the FP2 leaderboard, and seventh overall, was the No. 14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari 296 GT3 Evo of Konsta Lappalainen, who registered a 1:23.342 late on in FP2.

Another Porsche starred at the head of the Silver Cup times as the No. 914 Razoon – more than racing entry of Simon Birch set the pace with a 1:23.448 that was good enough for 12th in FP2.

The pace was very close throughout the field with the top 27 of the 34 entries being split by less than a second.

Among the cars outside of those 27 were the pair of Lamborghini Temerario GT3s as they finished up bottom of the FP2 table while the new car continues to get up to speed.

There were relatively few interruptions across the two sessions with the one notable incident being a crash for Andrea Frassineti in the No. 66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II at Stirlings in FP1 that brought out the red flags. The car did not return to the track during FP2.

Attention now turns to qualifying, which is due to get under way at 4:40 p.m. local time (11:40 a.m. ET) on Saturday.

RESULTS: Free Practice 1/Free Practice 2