Sowery Quickest in Rain-Hit Nürburgring Pre-Qualifying

Toby Sowery led a Bronze Cup 1-2 in a rain-hit Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS Endurance Cup Pre-Qualifying session at the Nürburgring.

Sowery, piloting the No. 991 Century Motorsport BMW M4 GT3, posted a 2:09.613 in the opening stages of Saturday afternoon’s one-hour session, which remained the benchmark as the arrival of rain not much later prevented further improvements.

As a result, Century’s Bronze Cup-entered machine led the overall leaderboard ahead of class rivals Garage 59, who slotted into second with their No. 188 McLaren 720S GT3 Evo driven by Adam Smalley.

Yannick Mettler completed the top three aboard the No. 3 GetSpeed Performance Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo as the leading Silver Cup entry, with the No. 163 GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 of Franck Perera the quickest Pro car in fourth overall.

Perera tangled with the No. 159 McLaren of Nicolai Kjaergaard at Turn 2 with 33 minutes to go, which resulted in a puncture for the McLaren although both cars completed the rest of the session.

Henrique Chaves picked up fifth in the No. 34 Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo, ahead of the No. 99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi R8 LMS GT3 Evo driven by Ricardo Feller.

Loek Hartog’s No. 97 Rutronik Racing Porsche 911 GT3 R ended the session in seventh, ahead of the pair of ROWE Racing BMWs in the hands of Marco Wittmann and Max Hesse. The overall top ten was rounded out by the No. 22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche.

The session saw only one brief red flag with 41 minutes to go to clear fluids on track at Turn 17.

Qualifying for the Fanatec GT Europe Endurance Cup round is scheduled for Sunday at 8:45 a.m. CEST (2:45 a.m. EDT).

RESULTS: Pre-Qualifying