Corvette takes narrow lead in FP2
Intriguing second session at the Nürburgring: Corvette narrowly leads
Top Ten, all bunched within half a second.
The second free practice session at the Nürburgring was mildly overcast with an ambient temperature of 20°C. It was also one of the closest seen in this year's ADAC GT Masters as 19 supercars recorded lap times that were within a second of each other. Topping the timesheets was the Corvette Z06.R driven by Toni Seiler and Jeroen Bleekemolen (Callaway Competition), with the Prosperia C Abt Audi R8 LMS ultra of Fabian Hamprecht and Nicki Thiim a mere 0.081 seconds behind.
The Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 driven by newcomer Renger van der Zande and Maximilian Götz (HTP Motorsport) took an initial lead, before Bleekmoelen set the fastest lap of the session at the halfway point. Van der Zande and Götz, who had finished the morning practice in top spot, had to settle for P3 in the afternoon after Hamprecht and Thiim edged ahead later on.
Kelvin van der Linde and René Rast in a Prosperia C Abt Racing Audi R8 LMS ultra completed the session in fourth place ahead of the Porsche 911 GT3 R driven by Jaap van Lagen and Christian Engelhart (GW IT Racing Team Schütz Motorsport).
Current championship leaders Claudia Hürtgen and Dominik Baumann (Pixum Team Schubert) were seventh in the fastest of the BMW Z4 GT3s ahead of the Porsche driven by Robert Renauer and Norbert Siedler (TONINO Team Herberth). Meanwhile, Pixum team-mates Max Sandritter and Jens Klingmann were not having the happiest of times; Sandritter drove into a tyre wall, which means that his team have a big repair job in the run-up to qualifying at 4.20pm (CEST).
The Corvette duo of David Jahn and Sven Barth (RWT Racing Team) finished free practice in P8 ahead of the third Audi R8 LMS ultra entered by Prosperia C Abt Racing and driven by Christer Jöns and Markus Winkelhock. Florian Spengler and Marko Asmer (MRS GT Racing) in the McLaren 12C GT3 will be pleased to have made it into the Top Ten; for much of the session, they were in fourth place, but they were unable to improve on their time in the second half owing to a technical problem and consequently slipped back to tenth.
