Jordan Pepper put the #63 Grasser Racing Lamborghini on top in Friday afternoon’s Free Practice at Magny-Cours. The CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa winner posted a 1m37.192s a little after the mid point in the 1-hour-40-minutes session and was not beaten thereafter.
Pepper was pursued by a pair of Porsches. Ricardo Feller was second fastest in the #80 Lionspeed GP entry, 0.037s off top spot, with Patric Niederhauser a further 0.20s back in the #96 Rutronik Racing machine. Feller also paced the Bronze Cup class with a comfortable margin over the #112 CSA Racing McLaren (P9 overall).
Luca Stolz was fourth overall in the #9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG, followed by Chris Lulham in the #69 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari. The British driver was fastest of all during the first half of the session with a time of 1m37.472s. French ace Thomas Neubauer was sixth in the #50 AF Corse – Francorchamps Motors Ferrari.
Seventh overall and the best of the Silver Cup runners was the #26 Saintéloc Racing Audi. Lorens Lecertua set a 1m37.513s, leaving him a little over three tenths shy of the pace-setting Pepper. Given the team’s prowess at Magny-Cours, this is a car to watch over the course of the weekend.
The session was typically close, with less than a second separating the top 30 cars and just 1.7s covering the entire 40-car field. All of this weekend’s contenders were on-track, with no stoppages costing them running time.
Pre-Qualifying is up next at 20:45 CEST. This one-hour session sets the scene for the weekend’s competitive action, with Qualifying 1 (14:45) and Race 1 (20:30) set to run on Saturday, followed by Qualifying 2 (10:30) and Race 2 (15:15) on Sunday.
> RESULTS: Free Practice