+ Provisional Result: Pre-Qualifying, Misano
There was literally nothing to separate the top runners in Pre-Qualifying at Misano as the #22 Allied-Racing Porsche and #99 PROsport Racing Aston Martin remarkably set identical lap times to head the field on Friday.
Free Practice set the tone of how close the weekend promised to be with six cars covered by 0.1s, but things got unbelievably close in the second session of the day with seven cars within that mark, and the Porsche of Herolind Nuredini/Leo Pichler and the Aston shared by Raphael Rennhofer/Hugo Sasse tying for the outright fastest time. Nuredini set the benchmark first before Rennhofer later equalled it, giving Allied-Racing the top spot by default.
The overall pace was just behind that of Free Practice, but the fight at the front was frantic throughout, with a handful of cars trading the fastest time in the early stages. Among those were Paul Petit in the #75 AV Racing Porsche, Matt Nicoll-Jones in the #62 Academy Ford Mustang, the #15 NM Racing Team Mercedes-AMG in the hands of Lluc Ibañez, and Cameron Lawrence in the #81 RAFA Racing Team McLaren. Berkay Besler then put the Borusan Otomotiv Motorsport BMW he shares with reigning champion Gabriele Piana on top before the red flags flew when one of the Mahiki Racing Lotus Emiras needed to be recovered from pit exit.
Sasse wasted no time when running resumed, putting the PROsport Vantage top, before Nuredini bettered him in the #22 Porsche 718 Cayman RS CS GT4 by fractions of a second. Those fractions became literally nothing when Rennhofer took over for the final run and matched Nuredini’s time exactly.
Robert Consani and Benjamin Lariche were third in their Team Speedcar Audi R8, ahead of W&S Motorsport pair Finn Zulauf and Max Kronberg, who secured the top Pro-Am time in fourth overall. The second PROsport Aston driven by Fabio Rauer and Hendrik Still was fifth ahead of the Elite Motorsport McLaren shared by Tom Emson and Alex Denning. Free Practice pace-setters Ibañez and Alexandre Papadopulos were seventh, incredibly only 0.103s off the fastest time.
Schumacher CLRT stayed out front in the Am class, with the fastest lap from Laurent Hurgon putting he and team-mate Pascal Huteau clear of their rivals. A great effort from Andy Cantu moved the NM Racing Team Mercedes-AMG he shares with Dilantha Malagamuwa into second in class, with the GPA Racing Aston Martin of Florent Grizaud and Kevin Jimenez ending the session third in class.
The GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club field will be back in action for qualifying on Saturday morning, where a new split system will be used for the first time.
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