Salman Owega (20/Cologne/Haupt Racing Team) clocked the fastest time of the opening day of practice in the ADAC GT Masters at Circuit Zandvoort. He set the pace in his Ford Mustang GT3, with a time of 1:34.413 minutes. “We are making progress from one session to the next and I am very happy with the car today,” said Owega, who shares the cockpit with Finn Wiebelhaus (19/Obertshausen). “However, the radar is showing rain for Saturday, so we don’t really know how much we can read into our performance today.”
Friday witnessed some stormy weather in Zandvoort, with dark clouds frequently looming ominously. However, the expected rain did not materialise and all the practice sessions took place in dry conditions and temperatures around 16 degrees Celsius. Julian Hanses (27/Hilden/FK Performance Motorsport) ended the day in second place, just 0.098 seconds slower than Owega. The BMW M4 GT3 Evo driver set his fastest time early on in the session, and was only replaced at the top of the timings sheet by Owega in the final few minutes.
Third place in FP2, and the fastest time of the opening session, went to Jannes Fittje (25/Langenhain/SR Motorsport by Schnitzelalm). The Mercedes driver’s time of 1:34.757 minutes was 0.344 seconds off the top spot. “Things are going really well for us. We made a few improvements to the car before the second practice session,” said Fittje. “I hope it rains on Saturday. Generally speaking, I really like wet conditions and fancy my chances more in the wet than in the dry.”
In fourth place was Sandro Holzem (20/Polch). He was 0.095 seconds faster in his Schubert Motorsport BMW than fellow BMW racer Leyton Fourie (19/RSA/FK Performance Motorsport), who completed the top five. Local favourite Dante Rappange did not take his place in the Lamborghini Huracán GT3 Evo2 in Zandvoort as expected. He was replaced by Baptiste Moulin (25/BEL), who shares the car run by Liqui Moly Team Engstler by GRT with Szymon Ladniak (22/POL).
The first qualifying session in Zandvoort takes place at 08:25 on Saturday and will be broadcast live on Youtube.com/ADACMotorsports, with commentary in German and English. The following race gets underway at 15:15 and will be streamed live on Sport1.de, Joyn, ServusTV ON and YouTube.
