LIVE _ Pre-Qualifying _ Nürburgring _ GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS 2025 (English)

Welcome back to the Nürburgring. We had a fantastic pre-practice early this morning. Two hours, now we've got an hour. This is pre-qualifying. Track conditions improving all the time. There was a little flurry of rain earlier today, but really not much to mention apart from that. The humidity though has fallen. It was 94% when the drivers were out there, so it wasn't warm air temperature-wise. It certainly wasn't too comfortable for all the drivers. You could see on their faces the sweat on their brow, but right now track conditions looking very, very good indeed. My name is Bruce Jones, joined for the session for the entire weekend by Joe Osborne. What did we learn in that first session? It was tight, but I reckon it's going to go tighter still in this one-hour session. Yeah, I agree. Pre-practice, two hours long, so we couldn't call the strategy what tyres, what fuel were the teams running. Pre-qualifying, because it is a pre-qualifying session, were qualifying to be abandoned, the times from this session would be used. So it's much more stringent. All cars have to start full of fuel. That can be checked at any time. All cars must start on a set of new tyres, of which these tyres can only be used in this session this weekend. So the strategy is zero. Everyone is the same. So then it's down to what the teams want to learn from this. Are they going to try and do a fake mock quali-sim? The problem is the car's full of fuel, it won't be in qualifying. Do they go into a race run? Do they put their fastest driver in now when the car should be at its fastest? Yes, full of fuel, but the new tyre worth so much around this slippy Nürburgring surface from what the drivers are being saying this weekend. One other factor to be put into the mix. 61 cars. You have 60 rivals out on this track. The lap length is only 5.137 kilometres. Yeah, 5.137 kilometres. Space on the track is at a premium. It definitely will become qualifying, but also just the issue you can get interrupted by someone who's maybe two-tenths of a second slower than you round a lap. It just wrecks it all for you. So engineers are really going to have to be in their drivers' ears. Drivers have got to be completely attentive so they can run through what they want to do without interruption. It's going to be difficult, really difficult with 61 cars, but hey, let's give it a go. Yeah, we worked the math earlier. It gives each car roughly 80 metres of real estate if they were to be equidistant, which of course is never going to happen at the moment though. Max Janssen in this century BMW looking okay. We saw a wiggle of oversteer leaving turn two, but the rest of the lap has looked pretty good so far and has some good space as well. As we look at one of the Audis here, this is Ivan Klimenko. Had a very strong Zanvort earlier in the year and has been one of the faster silver drivers in our field this year as well. Yeah, when talking about the silver class, it was suitable. We've just been showing Matt Janssen. He's leading that with William Moore and Garth Wawrski, the century motorsport BMW. Santolok, Ivan Klimenko, third in the championship. It's Laurence Le Ceture. Again, young guns starting to try and make their mark at this level, but it's not easy. It's far, far from easy. Forget the fact you've got 60 rivals, it's the calibre, but we do race across four class. We've got pro, we've got gold, we've got silver, we've got bronze and so there really is something to fight for at all points. Don't be, of course, with a three driver line-up, if you're running in bronze, you can still have a superstar. You've got that in the bronze championship leader in Dennis Marshall, so at some point in the mix, you can go really well for bronze, but you forget it's the driver with the most points on his license in the nice way that comes out. Let's listen to Team Radio. Car number 26, Santolok Racing. We have already two track limit warnings, one for turn two, then for turn four. Take care of track limit warnings. That was the 26 car, Santolok Racing, take care of track limits. I think the drivers know that, but it doesn't hurt to remind them, does it? It really doesn't. We saw in free practice this morning, cars being given 10 minutes stop and go, so you heard that correct. They weren't allowed to be on circuit for 10 minutes because they had done so many track limit warnings and it will be an issue in the race. Once you do the sixth one, you get a 30 second penalty added either to your next pit stop or to the end of the race if there's no more pit stops, then it goes into drive-through, so teams will have to be getting their eye in on that. Someone getting their eye in at the moment, you can see fastest in sector one at the moment, opening up these corners nicely. Track limits is difficult as a driver, some corners are police, some are not, so you are keeping it legal where you know it's monitored and then you can do what you want effectively at the corners that aren't, and that's a skill in itself. Absolutely, you've got to be able to count up to 17, 17 turns on this circuit. The one that I was looking at early on, I'm thinking a lot of drivers are going wide at turn six, which is that wonderful downhill right-hander, that one's not being policed. The corners at which they're being pinged, turn one, no surprises there. Turn four, as you're leaving the complex, the sort of first four corners, you take that tight right-hander and then turn 17, the final corner, and that can be the absolute killer. Yeah, it's double jeopardy at 17, isn't it? Because if you run wide, you lose the lap you're on and the next because you're judged to carry speed on to the following lap, so it's like being put in prison for doing a bank job and then for speeding away at the same time. It's one or the other, police officer, as we look at Lauren Heinrich in the 22 CLRT Schumacher Porsche here, riding the kerbs so well. Look at Lukasz Au there on the timing screen, a purple sector one, so we'll keep an eye on our Wynwood Mercedes as it crosses the line. In around 15 seconds, it won't be too far behind this Porsche who goes fastest. There is that car of Lukasz Au about to cross the line. Where is he going to be? He needs to be quicker than a 55.3 to go fastest. He does that. 55.1, that's faster than any of the times we've seen today, including the free practice this morning. Okay, it might be a moment just for me to touch on the championship points. In the outright championship, it could hardly be closer between the top three crews. Lukasz Au at car number 48, the Wynwood Racing Manfilsa Mercedes shared with Matteo Corolli and Mauro Engel. 54 points, just one point clear of the number 32 In turn, they're just one point clear of Sven Muller, Patrick Niederhauser, Alessio Piccariello in the number 96 Reutronic Racing Porsches. Three manufacturers, three crews, two points is the difference. So a point for pole. No one can get it today. We don't qualify until tomorrow morning, but for any of those teams, it could be just helpful and then some. Yeah, definitely so. Some of the drivers say they found it hard to overtake and the Niki team having to send the move down there on the Kessel car of Nicola Rossi and gets it done, but runs wide, just about keeps legal. So he'll keep this lap, but the new tyre dropping off. We've seen cars only able to get one fast lap and the seventh car goes seventh, then straight back down to eighth as Carl Basch pushed him down a place. Well, Tommaso Mosca has put a Ferrari top of the pile. Haven't seen that too much through the course of the Gear Car 52. He's sharing that, that's a bronze class entry, but he's definitely not the bronze, is he? We shared with the two McEels, father Louis and son Jeff McEels, but some good news for Ferrari for once. This season has been a bit up and down for them, but don't forget, of course, one of them came home third in the Spa 24 hours. So you've got to do not just one thing right, an awful lot of things very right in such an incredibly testing endurance race. Yeah, Ferrari doing so right here is Ferrari growing the 50 factory AF core, effectively purple sector two, and that's an important sector here. Look at the queue of cars in front of him. He is tying this gap just right, crosses the line, goes fastest two tenths, nearly quicker than Lucas Auer in the car. He's about to cross the line again now. Can he improve as he crosses the line? He cannot. So it looks like these tires are starting to drop off performance-wise. Yeah, for Lucas Auer, his two consecutive laps were covered by about 23 thousandths of a second, so allowing for a little bit of traffic, a little bit of fall-off. That was a good lap too, but one minute for him, one minute 54.9 for Antonio Fuoco and another 50 AF Corsa, Francochamps Motors Ferrari. You can see Preining here getting on the flash as the 91 Herberth car getting out the way. Will the Lamborghini do the same? I think not. Bortolotti there is on a prep lap, so he wants to keep the Porsche behind. Preining wants to get past. Bortolotti has cost Preining, I think, four to five tenths here, so a lap that looked like could improve on eighth, I think will struggle to improve on what he has already done as Bortolotti now tries to make his escape. And yes, look how much time lost in sector three. Here's Mapelli in another Lamborghini. They've had a balance of performance change since free practice. He's on the back of Lucas Stoltz. This is really a who's who of GT racing, isn't it? Felt like every car we've picked up in the last five minutes has been a household GT name. It's all down to direction, you know, TV direction there, but making it neat and tidy. But for the Lamborghinis, the drivers were scratching their heads a little bit this morning, but Marco Mapelli, don't forget he won this race last time around. And it's about getting those shots in that the VSR cars, nose to tail, down the start finish straight they go. Mapelli in front, but waiting to see Lamborghini start to land their blows. Yeah, we go to the 32 car. Another championship protagonist is backing out of this lap and that's going to help hold up Froco. We saw Froco behind all that traffic, but the 32 BMW is trying to get through on the inside. That was so close to contact there and we've seen it so often. Drivers are looking after themselves. They don't care if you're on a push lap. Headlights going quickly there as we cut to Farfus, who's now being held up by one of the CSA McLarens. He's going to try and get down the inside. He does, but again, time lost after an ultimately purple sector one faster than anyone. Yeah, that really was a case of Maxime meet Kelvin, wasn't it? But for the thickness of a coat of paint, the avoided contact down at turn one. Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on the timing screens to see what was happening to the Rover BMW. Traffic was not their friend there, but will they advance? Froco fastest. Farfus goes into second place. So what could have been? He's also just shy of 1 minute 54s. He's 1 minute 55.1. Van Sonnebril all smiles when I saw him this morning. So that one is picking up the pace. Ferrari suddenly seems to be right in the ballpark here at the Nürburgring. Yeah, Abreu all there. I think that's track limits. We keep an eye on the timing screen to keep this lap, if it stays there or not. Only good enough for 19th, straight to 20th. That shows you the fast paced Portolotti behind him, benefiting from the slip stream, but potentially in the dirty air as well. Early days yet, but 29 cars, not yet 30 within a second of the fastest time. So it's super, super close. But of course, the difference between the two-hour free practice and now is that people are starting to use a bit more fresh rubber. How low will we go? But more to the point, how low will we go tomorrow morning? Of course, it'll probably be a lot cooler. Who knows if there'll be rain around the corner behind the next section of forest up here in the Eiffel Mountains. But right now we've got to see again this incredible manufacturer diversity at the top of the field. Ferrari, BMW, Mercedes, then the best of the Porsche's, Heinrich in 6th. The Aston Martin's only down in 9th position. They've shown a good hand this morning. Best of the Lamborghinis, which may be pertinent. They won here last year. Portolotti down in 11th overall. This is a spicy free practice, isn't it? Into pre-qualifying now, of course, but Marni there getting held up by Liberati, who's on the defence. If you were just tuning in now, you wouldn't believe this is a practice session, would you? Yes, pre-qualifying. They're squeezing each other all the way to the pit wall. The Mustang power gets past the Mercedes V8 battle there and Marni compromised, but at least now has got some space. Auer has now boxed, so has Cheever. That's that new tyre performance dropping off. Let's keep an eye on Kirchhoff. He was compromised at the end of the lap, but I think that lap was good enough for top 10 potentially. Don't forget this morning, of course, the Mustangs finally found some pace. Really they've been getting close to the pace, but this morning I think they were third and fourth at one point. Ended up sort of in the top 10 with a couple of both of their cars. So for the Hout Racing team based nearby, you know, maybe the progress is coming this weekend. Yes, and whenever you start a new project, it's difficult. So potentially a bit of blue smoke coming out of the back of that Ford as it exited on the kerb. Looked quite a rich blue, so not a tyre smoke, more of an oil-based one. We'll keep an eye on that as we go through the session. And also just keep an eye on their positions at the moment. I shouldn't get too excited about the Mustangs because they're down. The Blue Oval fans will find them in 51st and 52nd in this 61 car field, but it's the pace at the front that's really becoming apparent. I'm just looking down, yep, 29 cars down to Loris Cabirou, car number 10, Boots, VDS, Mercedes all within the top second of that fastest time. Still held by the number 50 Ferrari. Arjomaini, no progress on this lap thus far. I've got to give a shout out to the 777 Almanacar as well. That was Faisal Al Zubair who did that time. Fifth fastest overall for the Arjomaini. The silver graded driver has done a really, really strong job there to be right in the mix of all the factory drivers, so for me that's a proper standout lap for the 777 car. What we saw in the free practice this morning, Jens Klingman set the time in the 777 BMW. Did it really early on, didn't really need much time. Then it was handed over, so clearly the setup on the Almanacar is tip-top, or certainly is on tyres that maybe aren't yet fully up to what they need to be. But the championship leading car, as I said, only one point clear. Sitting in the pit lane at the moment, but does have Lugiawa's lap, which is third fastest on the board for them for now, for what it's worth. Yeah, the car's really opening up this sequence of corners. They're going to 11. That used to actually be an AstroTurf back in my day, and so you weren't able to open up, but the AstroTurf has been ripped up and now the driver's maximizing it, keeping it legal as well. Dennis Marshall, fourth at the moment, stuck in a bit of traffic behind Pridening, who was stuck in traffic earlier on. There's going to be a common theme there. The only thing to add to this pre-qualifying regulation, it is used in case qualifying is cancelled. Like we said, full of fuel, new tyres, everyone on one set has to use their set. They have to do a minimum of eight timed laps as well, which is easy in the time afforded to us, of course, but some teams tried to keep the tyres fresher because it could potentially carry these tyres over to the next round if they wanted. They can't be used this weekend, but it could be one of their two carryover sets for the following race weekend. Right, Dennis Marshall leading the bronze class. He was fleetingly, he's still in fourth place overall, but of course he's a driver who, if he was paired with other people of higher rank, he would be in the top class. But Dennis, German racer, loves this circuit. He's two tenths of a second down on the ultimate pace, but for the Kessel Racing crew, they'll be rather pleased with that. Shows, certainly this afternoon, he's the second best of the Ferraris. We've got one at the top of the time charts outright, Antonio Fuoco's car number 50, the only car to get below 1 minute 55, thus far. There is the Alfaisal, Alzubert, BMW, we've just been talking about, Almenar Racing, fifth fastest overall, 1 minute 55.1, 2.3, 0.23 of a second down, so Marnie, as you said, doing a very, very good job, but already the rotation of drivers is happening. Yeah, and it's a tale of two stories, isn't it, because the all the way down in 39th position at the moment. I'm just looking at theoretical laps, so if you put their best sectors together for drivers, some big movers are the 32, so Calvin van der Linde must have got traffic. The other one was the Kershoffer car, like I said, to keep an eye on. If you put his best laps, he would, his best sector, sorry, he would be seventh on his theoretical, and he's all the way down in 16th, but it doesn't matter if it's theoretical, it needs to be on the board, and that's what will be important for qualifying. Certainly does, looking at Luke Hartog there, car number 97, that's one enter, the Porsche entered by Reutronic Racing, their sister car though is the one we tend to look to, because that's the one that's third in the championship in the hands normally of, it's a regular crew, the 96 car, Patrick Niederhauser, Sven Muller, and of course Alessio Piccariello, all Porsche experts, not so long ago, of course Patrick Niederhauser was an Audi expert for many years, but drivers move around as they're sought by the manufacturers who are desperate to achieve at this level. So the bronze class being led in fourth place overall by Dennis Marshall, but quite a lot of the front runners in the pits at the moment, but the improvements are coming for the crews a little further down the order. Hugo de Wilder has just got into the number 32 at BMW, he'd been mentioned that from Team WRT in the pre-practice this morning, had a couple of long, long pit stops, seems to have some problems, but he's taken that over from Kelvin Vanderlinde and we'll see what that can do now it's out on the track. You can see how much open that corner of the splitter, just kissing on the Porsche. Only three hours here at Nürburgring, we've been used to six hours in the past, huge snap of oversteer into the gravel and that's going to drag a load more onto the circuit once more, and again that will be a theme, but now it's a three-hour format here, it's a proper sprint, three drivers, one hour each pretty much, give or take a couple of minutes, either way of stint time, and you need to attack every single iota of the circuit to make it to the end. There's no point trying to look after the car any time lost, it's gone and look at that, it's like a street circuit all the way up to the barrier because he doesn't need to be at 50 until now, so if he's just found a few tenths that's worthwhile for the race later on tomorrow. So many things that a single-seater driver wouldn't think of when they move into GTs and there are just so many elements of the race and so many elements of qualifying and practice that they need to just focus on, whereas before if it was just go out and thrash your set of new tyres in your single seater it's not as complex, it's also being able to hand over a car to teammates in a condition that's tolerable, with a bit of rubber that they might use and so on and so forth. But right, Alberto Di Falco, he was one of several drivers we saw running off the track this morning in free practice and the place they tended to be going off, often it was turn 16, coming out of chicane, that's understandable, we had quite a few going off at the first corner as well and then turn six was the one that really caught us out, we had two if not three drivers, I think it was two actually, who had a snap oversteer coming out of turn five, the left-hander, was still gathering it at turn six and two of them slid sideways into the wall, but the one with the most damage was the car that's actually, I just see 50th on the charts, the number 112 CSA Racing McLaren, so actually they've done well to get that rebuilt, it was at a bit more impact than the one of the Trazer Attempto cars that went off before it, but good to see we've got 61 cars out on the track, everybody getting out to play. Yeah, represented by 10 manufacturers, so a lot of the teams of course carry spare parts and components, but all the manufacturers support this series so strong, they send their own spares trucks, their own technical support staff, so it's such a big entity now, this series, that everyone wants to win, so everyone will support, so CSA would be able to go to the McLaren parts truck and pick the parts they need, because McLaren are supporting this financially from the main group as well, it's all a big marketing ploy now, if we can show our cars fast on the Sunday and maybe we'll sell some on the Mondays, the theory. There's absolutely that, but it's also just the element that when the series started out of the Stéphane Rattel organisation, it raced in Europe, gradually there were a few overseas races outside Europe, then of course we had the GT World Challenge Asia kick-off, GT World Challenge America, GT World Challenge Australia, and if you can have your cars shown doing really good performances on one championship, you can be sure they're going to be in the next championship the following year, and certainly every single one of the series is growing like topsy at the moment, so the formula is right, and it's up to the drivers to squeak every tenth of a second, even every hundredth of a second out, so stay at the front, and at the moment talking of hundredths of a second, the top second now covers two more cars, 31, almost half of this, well let's call it half, of this 61 car field within a second of that fastest lap, which is still belonging to the number 50 Ferrari, Arthur Leclerc is clambered on board, but it was Antonio Fuoco who set the pace in that one, yeah and Leclerc's last lap of 57.8, so traffic affected this one, as we've got a red flag actually, so all cars immediately slow down to 80 kilometers an hour, and they will return to pit lane immediately, I'm just looking on the track map, I can't see an obvious car that has stopped at the moment, so we'll get all cars back, and then we'll get the session resumed, obviously the clock keeps ticking, it's not a qualifying session, it is just pre-qualifying, so all cars will come back to pit lane. Yeah, no need to take any risks, if there's any caution out on the circuit, you know, it's up, it's up to the road stewards to go right, we will just clean this up in full safety, because of And as we look, we're just hearing no cars are off, but there's a track repair that needs to be done, and normally I'm just hearing that's likely to be a kerb, and of course if a kerb suddenly sits up a little high, that it wouldn't be what the doctor would order, so the car is reporting into the pit garages right now, and as soon as the track repair can be affected, then we will go back out, but the clock continues to count down, we have 37 minutes remaining, and suddenly it's going to be very full in the pit lane, because there'll be one, two, three, four, five, sixty-one cars coming to put their, be spun around on the dolly jacks to 45 degree angle, and positioned in front of their pit garages, because if they tried to go just parallel with the pit lane, there wouldn't be space. Right, and you can see that procedure going on well with AF Corson, the Ziggo Tempesta car, and in the race director notes, it always asks the cars to be as parallel as possible to stop, and then you will skate around, so you don't want to see the cars come in and try and swing themselves around, that's when we can have some conflict. There was the car in the barrier that effectively ended the free practice session this morning, you can see some witness marks on the front corner there, but the mirror has been put back on successfully, and a few rub marks on that rear legality panel too, so the CSA team doing a good job to get that car turned around in a short space of time. Yeah, the car went in to the tyre wall at turn six, pretty much parallel, parallel parking, but it was just a little bit of contact with the tyre wall, which did what it needed to do, it sort of took the speed out of it, brought the car to a standstill, but right now the standstill is what's happening to the car as we come into the pit lane, and for the AF Corsa Ferrari crew, they've got the car number 50 in the lead of the table at the moment, and the car just pulled in behind it, yet to be swung around, is Van Sant-Abril, he's handed it over to Alessandro Pierghini just before the red flag, and they're down in 21st position, but expect a bit more, so a little bit of clean-up work, and such an array of course vehicles you need to do the job effectively, and Nürburgring, it's one of the top circuits in the world in having to tidy it up, and just think about it, how much they have to do here, what happens in the races where they go out onto the Nordschleife, you've got 172 turns, you can't have a course vehicle for every second or third of those, so they've got to be very, very good at moving them around effectively, according to what has happened where, but what an array of cars, the flurry of Ferraris at the bottom of the scene there, with the Ziggo Sport car, and if you've been looking forward to this race and just wondered why Chris Froggatt isn't here, he had a sort of, didn't clear a medical test, wasn't feeling well this morning, and Lorenzo Patrese has joined the crew for the Ziggo Tempesta Ferrari, that's car number 93, so very useful stand-in, and right now it's sort of a car valet session in a way, isn't it, bring them in, swing them around, car parking, but again, just an emphasise the sheer number of cars here, a record at 61. Yeah, and the previous high was 55, so it's a big jump from there, so the race will be busy in the pit, so the teams are already planning when they want to box, they want to box ultimately on the best strategy, but maybe the pit lane will be too busy for that, and they'll be better to come in a lap earlier, a lap later, if it gives them some more space, so it's listening on the radio. Yeah, for me, of course there is more grip, but I think it's the track, it's not the platform, and because we are now more in the tyre window, because it's hotter, I still have the same issues, massive understeer, like crazy, T2, T3, no rotation, T6, no rotation, T8, zero rotation, I have no rotation, slow speed corner whatsoever, and it destroys the traction also, because I go on throttle with a lot of steering angle, so for me we are lacking a lot of rotation. Okay, copy that. That was the voice of a somewhat frustrated Julguen on there, still good enough for the top 10, in fact seventh place overall, almost four tenths of a second out. Now, this is presumably, okay, it's coming out of the penultimate corner, out of the chicane, we saw a lot of drivers running wide there, and the kerbing, someone has identified very, very cleverly, with good eyes, spotted the bit of the kerbing has come a little bit loose, and it's the kerbing beyond the kerb, if you know what I mean, you had the red and white kerbing, but it was the concrete kerbing beyond. I'll tell you what, it's busy in the pit lane, and let's go down and hear from Thierry Vermeulen, who's down there with Alex, and he's going to tell all. Thierry, you are in serious title contention this weekend, but what is most important for you in pre-qualifying? Some valuable points, right? Yeah, at the moment we're just getting the car in the right window, checking out some different things, but all in all, just running through our programme, and it's going smooth so far. And what are you learning, when you hand the car over, what is it that you're, what message are you giving? Just how the balance is, of course, everyone's starting on a new tyre in pre-quali, so also learning how the peak of the tyre comes, and these kind of things, and just evaluating with the team how we can maximise it all tomorrow. What's it like to drive two very different cars in one championship? Interesting, for sure, Aston Martin is obviously quite different than the Ferrari, but I think you learn a lot from it as a driver as well, how to adapt to different cars, and it's been a pleasure so far. Is this technically your home race, or are you making it so, you know, you're near enough, right? Yeah, it's quite close to home, so it's actually closer than Zandvoort, so it's nice, it's always a track I enjoy driving, and now a bit different layout than with DTM, so always some fun challenges to it. Yeah, what do you think is going to be the challenge for you this weekend, or do you feel quietly confident? Oh, for sure, it won't be easy, this is a track, of course, with high degradation, so just managing that and seeing how we can build the car around that, and of course, as a driver, how you adapt to that, and I think that will be very important with the one-hour stint in the race. Yeah, good, all right, best of luck, have a good weekend! That was Thierry Vermeulen, who came here with a good 25-point lead, along with his teammates Harry King and Chris Lallan in the gold class for staffman.com, running the Aston Martin, but of course, when it comes to sprint rounds, they're in a Ferrari run by Emil Frey Racing, so a lot for a driver to think of, but just look down at this aerial shot show as we move over the pits, I mean, it is astonishing, 20 years ago, GT3 sort of came to be, and it's grown and grown, even to the point the SRO, the organisers of this entire, creators of this championship, the creators of GT3, have now started, for 2026, a historic series for the earliest GT3 cars. Talk about a success story! Yeah, this is the biggest grid we've ever had in an endurance race, outside of the Spa, 24 hours, and yeah, 10 different manufacturers represented down there, and it really is like being a kid in a sweet shop, isn't it? Which one would you pick from that lineup? And we've got some good liveries as well this year, easy to spot, the AF course, Ferraris, of course, that comes to you, Aston Martins, and this car here of Blattner, no Ferrari red on it, but yeah, Dustin Blattner has been in imperious form, and he's a bronze rated driver, he's got successful business, he decides he likes to go racing in his spare time, but he is mixing it up with some of the young professionals as the silver graded drivers, he's very much a cat amongst the pillions. Yeah, so here's a blue and white Ferrari, it's car number 74 at the top of the screen, alongside the multi-coloured number eight sister car, black effectively, with lurid swirls and swoops in all sorts of bright colours, but we do have another blue and white Ferrari, that's number 12, Rinaldi racing one, get them mistaken from time to time, with series debutant Raphael Duran on board this weekend with Fabrizio Cristani and David Pirel, but big names the whole way down this multi-coloured pit lane, it's good to see it in the sunshine too. A couple of car controllers disagreeing with each other there, one of them knowing he's on TV, and yeah, you've got to have a good relationship with your neighbour in this kind of racing, because what tends to happen is you start the communication early, you go this is our strategy, even though they're separate teams, you want to be on the same page, and what always happens is you end up lying to each other and you end up tripping over, right, we're going to box on lap 32, try and get them to box on lap 31, so you get a bigger gap, and then everyone is trying to bluff each other, but the circuit doing a good job, cleaning the circuit while we've got this downtime. We've been talking Kessel Racing, let's go down in here from the driver of 74, Dennis. Dennis, you have been on fire the last few rounds, and this is a rather important weekend for you, isn't it? Yeah, I mean the last couple of rounds we were always quick, but we didn't score the points we wanted to, so yeah, this weekend is important, we have a good margin to come to the guys in the back, but we want to stay consistent and then score points for the championship. What's important for you to get out of this pre-qualifying session? Yeah, I think this is, since everyone's starting on new tyres, you know, you're trying to get the last bit of feeling for a new tyre run, the new tyre is quite effective here, you can feel it, that's first, second, third lap is just quite strong, and then the tyres digging quite a lot, and so we try to prepare a bit for qualifying, even though everyone is running the same and high fuel levels. Yeah, okay, and so from your perspective, from the world of Dennis, what does Nürburgring throw at you? What do you feel is the hardest thing for you to overcome when you're here? I would say tyre dig, tyre dig is quite high, especially in the first tight sector, there's different tarmac levels in some corners, so the car behaves a bit different in some of the corners, and also I think track position, so qualifying is later important or tomorrow, because it's really hard to overtake. And when you have a red flag situation like this, how much does that affect mindset when it's in such a short session as it is? Well, I did my job, so I did my laps, so you have to ask Dustin, he didn't do any laps in the pre-qualifying and Conrad, I don't know how long it will take, but I think, you know, Dustin yesterday in bronze test, he did quite many laps, Conrad also felt comfortable before that, so I think we are fine if the session is not resumed. And I guess this is technically your home race as well? Yes, so I told you before, yes, it's my home race, because I'm German, but on the other side, I think I did more laps on other circuits, did more laps on other circuits than on this one, and yeah, I would even say Hockenheim is more my home race, because it's a bit closer to my hometown, but Nürburgring, I also spent many hours here. Yeah, well, I would take it, you know, if you're on the podium and you do well, then make it your home race. Yeah, exactly. I think the endurance championship, yes, maybe we can finish the championship this round, but I think for us, we look on the overall picture, overall championship, and I think we need a couple of more rounds to secure it. Very nice. Have a good one. Yeah, touching on that, of course, there's another sprint round at Valencia, then the finale at Barcelona, which will wrap up, not just the endurance series, but the entire 10 race GT World Challenge Europe series, and we'll see who comes out on top, I'll tell you what, leading when you combine them for the European series at the moment, it's car number 32 with an eight and a half point advantage, Kelvin van der Linde-Charlwitz, their BMW, second place overall, Lucas Auer and Mauro Engel, Wynwood Racing, Mercedes number 48, but it is that 48 Mercedes that leads the endurance class coming here to Nürburgring, ahead of the 32 BMW, but it's super close, the Reutronic 96 Porsche is one point behind them, still affecting those repairs, the cobbles effectively look like cobbles have been pulled out and replaced, it's quite a lot of people for two cobbles, but obviously you've got to have an expert, you've got to have an architect, a surveyor, but obviously track limits, if you run out over there, we saw a lot of cars sort of being spat out across the grass early this morning, and there was a lot of gravel between right in the middle of the chicane, and you could see someone hooked it onto the track, the next car we saw it following did exactly the same, and thereafter everybody is on a compromised line through there. Yeah, I think I spotted out the corner of the commentary box window, I think it was the Ronaldi Ferrari actually had a spin on the exit of that chicane just a couple of laps before we had to go red flag, so that could have been the final straw for that kerb, deciding I don't want to do this anymore, I want a new job opportunity in my life, and difficult for the drivers and teams here, what do they do? They're keeping drivers in of course, they're to a petty, they're cheap, but the tyres are in the oven, and they'll be ready for a short notice because they want to keep them warm in the ovens, but they don't want to miss any of the track time, because now the clock has ticked away, we've lost 15 minutes of it, so the teams will now be deciding, they would have cycled through all three drivers, they did the first one okay, some had the second in, but none of the seconds did a long enough run, so now I think one of the three drivers needs to put their hand up and go, I'm not going to do any laps, so I need to make sure we get two good runs over two drivers, rather than three compromised ones, and again the drone shot here showing a great illustration of the cars, how they are, different shapes, the engine really stipulates, doesn't it, the shape of the car, the long nose of those Mercedes, the BMW there for Team Italia, into a Lamborghini, the most successful brand here, by the way Lamborghini here at the Nürburgring in our past, the McLaren gives you a good illustration of how those doors opened into a similar shape Ferrari, yeah and the best of Lamborghinis at the moment, they took victory here last year, is Luca Engst's car, car number 63, down in 11th place, outside the top 10, but that doesn't put it way down on time, it's under half a second off the ultimate pace so far, but the pendulum seems to have swung towards Ferrari this afternoon, however it was as you pointed out Joe, about getting through three drivers running through this session, but the clock is down, it started with 60 minutes on the clock, it's down to only under 24 minutes remaining, so yeah, I think some of the drivers may have to say, I'll go and make the tea, you bring the biscuits, now this is a car, 911, moved into the top 10, moved into 8th place, Alex Malikin is the driver who is on board at the moment, but that's a car that certainly has potential, shared with Thomas Pryning, who we saw being obstructed, and Richard Leet, so there's more pace and this car is shown as yet, but it's already become competitive here, yeah and that was a car, Pryning wasn't getting held up on his fastest lap, and like I said, so much data available to the teams, I'm just looking at theoretical lap times and that is one of the cars that would be a big, big winner, if you could get all the sexes together, and drivers now starting to think, how do we want to do qualifying, we've seen a lot this year, the car's only needing one lap to do their lap time, 10 minute session, so you only need 1 minute 50 to do the job, but do you go early when the track's quiet, or do you go later, but people might be on their in laps, if they went early, 61 cars, there's going to be a split strategy, but you know there's going to be a lot of unhappy drivers at the end of the session saying, if, maybe, and buts, yeah, no certainly, some will go, I just squeaked out onto a clear bit of track, and others, I just had someone slower in front of me, but your options as the clock counts down, will be diminished, good crowd here today, enjoying the action, two days absolutely packed with action, from about 8.15 in the morning, the cars hit the track, and it's through till 6.30 at night, every one of the days, and we've got the support series as well, helping to bring people in, we've got GT4 European series, we've got Lamborghini Super Trofeo Europe, we've got the McLaren Challenge as well in there, and just a lot to watch, and it's a great circuit, some brilliant vantage points, this is down looking onto the track at Turn 1, but you can see them going through Turn 2, Turn 3, Turn 4, and you can actually see the track at Turns 11 and 12 on the rear wood leg, but right now, just waiting for the red flag period to be brought to an end, but let's go down to UNX Racing 888, and it's the driver, Mathieu Dutry. Hello Mathieu, well it's very nice to have you in the endurance paddock, we obviously see you in sprint, and presumably your first debut at the Nürburgring in this setup. Yeah exactly, I mean I raced here in 2018, I think in GT4 Europe, but since I never drove here again, so yeah, it feels good to be back, I love this track, and especially in this championship with 61 cars on track, it's quite tough, but yeah, we are here to learn, and we enjoy every moment. Am I right in thinking that you are the only team with just two drivers this weekend, and how does that work, how are you dividing it? Yeah, unfortunately Marta cannot join this race, it was quite last minute, we tried to find a third driver, but it was too short on time, so we decided to go with two drivers, so basically I will have to do the first quali, and the third, and same for the race, so I will do two stints, and Fabian in the middle stints. Well you know, if you've not been around the ring since 2018, that's probably no bad thing, you'll get a lot of laps around, right? Yeah exactly, because there is not a lot of driving time, especially when you start in the middle of the season, without any testing, so it's good for us that we have more driving time per driver, so yeah. Good, all right, well good, how's the car feeling so far? Yeah very good, the team did a good job, I still need to adapt myself to the car, but we are getting there. All right, have a good weekend. Thank you. Well there we are, right in the heart of the action, Alex Ligui down there, just moving to the back of the garage, there wasn't very little space in there, but the message had just come through, it was red flag, and now it means the session will not be resumed, so the kerb repairs still underway on the exit of Turn 16, but it was the number 50 Ferrari, Antonio Fuoco, putting the fastest time, the only driver to go beneath 1 minute 55 seconds, so of course the Ferrari 50 at the top of the chart, so Gusto Farfus, great time from him to go second fastest Rover Racing BMW, third place Lucas Auer in the championship, leading but only by a small margin Mercedes of Amman Filter Racing, another BMW, a great time from Alfaisal Alzhubert, good for fourth overall, and the best of the Porsches, it was the Eihänschen GVN, Lauren Heinrich, Klaus Bachler car, car number 22 from Schumacher CLRT in fifth position overall, and the top 30, eventually it changed at the end of the quick time in the front, 21 cars covered by one second, a 61 car field, and as we move down through the order, everybody got a time on the board, but certainly those sessions would be that session slightly compromised by the red flag, and the fact it interrupted that flow when each of the teams wanted to get all three drivers running through. Yeah, and just to cover off the regulation that all cars have to do eight laps in pre-qualifying, of course force majeure now will come into play, so be surprised if there's any penalties for cars that have done less than eight laps, because we effectively were only green for 23 minutes of a 60 minute session. So that's it for GT World Challenge today, we'll be back with qualifying tomorrow morning, do join us, it's very early on, join us for nine o'clock, we'll be back.