Marciello Quickest in Nürburgring Free Practice

Raffaele Marciello set the pace for AKKA-ASP in Free Practice for tomorrow’s GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup race at the Nürburgring.

Marciello got his fastest lap in early, producing a time of 1:54.675 in the opening 15 minutes that was enough to keep the No. 88 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo at the had of the leaderboard throughout the 90-minute session.

The Italian is sharing the Pro-class AKKA-ASP car with Felipe Fraga and Timur Boguslavskiy.

Second-quickest in Free Practice was Marco Mapelli in the No. 63 Orange 1 FFF Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo, just under half a second off Marciello’s pace.

Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evos occupied the next three positions, as Mattia Drudi posted a time of 1:55.146 to go third in the No. 66 Attempto Racing car.

This put the Italian ahead of Sainteloc Racing’s Markus Winkelhock and Team WRT’s Mirko Bortolotti in the championship-leading car that won the 3 Hours of Imola.

The best Porsche 911 GT3 R was the Pro-Am class No. 991 machine of Herberth Motorsport, which ended up sixth overall courtesy of Robert Renauer’s 1:55.564.

Renauer narrowly set the fastest Pro-Am time by four-thousandths of a second from Sandy Mitchell in the No. 78 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini.

Quickest in the Silver Cup class, and 15th overall, was the Garage 59 Aston Martin Vantage GT3 with Andrew Watson at the helm.

Saturday morning practice was disrupted by a red flag period lasting 12 minutes in the second half of the session.

This was caused by an incident for Stuart Hall, who was reported to be OK after his Silver Cup WRT Audi spun off through the Turn 1 gravel and into the tire barriers.

Next up for the Endurance Cup field is a 90-minute Pre-Qualifying session starting at 1:35 p.m. local time (7:35 a.m. EST).

RESULTS: Free Practice