Lionspeed Porsche Roars to Top First Prologue Day

Porsche ended the first day of the GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Prologue at Paul Ricard at the top of the timesheets courtesy of factory driver Thomas Preining at the wheel of the No. 80 Lionspeed GP Porsche 911 GT3 R Evo.

A total of seven hours of testing was completed on the opening day as the 59-strong Endurance Cup entry was in action together for the first time ahead of this weekend’s season-opener, and it was Preining’s 1:54.682 effort in the morning that proved to be the quickest on Wednesday.

His lap was less than a tenth faster than the best afternoon time, set by Ben Doerr at the wheel of the No. 23 Team RJN McLaren 720S GT3 Evo – the German clocking a 1:54.762 to also head the Silver Cup entrants.

Third on the combined timesheet was Christopher Haase in the No. 84 Eastalent Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo II, which was fractionally slower than the McLaren’s effort with a 1:54.768 set in the morning.

The majority of the other times inside the top 10 overall came from the afternoon, including fourth-placed Loek Hartog’s 1:54.804 in the No. 97 Rutronik Racing Porsche, which was the best of the Bronze Cup crews.

The next two quickest cars also posted times in the 1:54.8s, the No. 17 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Fabian Schiller fractionally faster than the similar No. 3 Verstappen Racing-badged machine of Jules Gounon.

Seventh fastest was the next best of the McLarens, the No. 44 Greystone GT Silver Cup entry of Jayden Kelly on a 1:54.925.

Three further Porsches managed to dip below the 1:55 bracket in the afternoon to complete the overall top 10: the sister No. 89 Lionspeed car of Alex Fontana heading the No. 2 Boutsen VDS and No. 9 Pure Rxcing machines.

Times were very close in the top half of the leaderboard – the top 39 cars were within a second of the ultimate pace – and the best of the Gold Cup entries was in 11th overall: the No. 111 CSA Racing McLaren with a 1:55.012 from Arthur Rougier that was the third best time of the morning.

There is a further four hours of testing scheduled on Thursday morning before focus then switches to practice on Friday ahead of the season-opening six-hour contest.