The free session of the 3 Hours of Imolathe first round of the GTWC Europe Endurance Cup, has ended with the best time of Raffaele Marciello at the wheel of the #88 Mercedes, GT3 that he shares with the Spanish Dani Juncadella and with Jules Gounon. The Italian driver has set a time of 1:40.298 in the early stages of the session to beat Maxime Martin by just over a tenth, fastest driver of the Aston Martin #95. Several periods of ‘Full Course Yellow’ and incidents have marked the development of the training.
The Mercedes #88 of the renowned Akkodis-ASP team is called to be one of the vehicles that fight for the title. For now, the French team’s GT3 has started in the best possible way thanks to Raffaele Marciello’s best time in the only free practice session of the 3 Hours of Imola. In spite of everything, the equality has been maximum and the first five classified have finished separated by less than two tenths. ‘Top 5’ in which, in addition to the #88 Mercedes and the #95 Aston Martin, the #2 Mercedes directed by Luca Stolz has also entered.
The first five positions have been completed by the Audi #25 and #32 thanks to the best laps of Patric Niederhauser and Kelvin Van der Linde, which has taken the #46 Audi to sixth place. The GT3 in which Valentino Rossi makes his debut has not finished very far from the leadersalthough the reference time was Frédéric Vervisch’s. Behind #46 the first BMW M4 GT3 has been placed, specifically #50 from the hand of an inspired Daniel Harper. Two other Audis and the McLaren #111 have closed the top ten positions of the session.
A training that has had several moments of tension and interruptions. Shortly after the green flag, the Mercedes #3 had a spin when Valdemar Eriksen was at the controls. Subsequently, he established the first period of ‘Full Course Yellow’ to place one of the bollards that delimit the interior of one of the curves, quite dangerous situation due to the presence of the marshals at a full angle with the passing of the GT3 a few meters away. Shortly after, another period of ‘FCY’ was establishedalthough much shorter.
There was still time in this practice session for a little track trip from the Mercedes #777 and a somewhat strange incident in which the #54 Dynamic Motorsport Porsche and the #33 Audi driven by Arnold Robin touched each other under braking for the penultimate corner. Between the yellow flag for this mishap and the closing of the session under a red flag, there was not much time to improve the previous records and that condemned Albert Costa’s #63 Lamborghini to finish 19th, two places ahead of the #51 Ferrari in which Miguel Molina competes.
Photos: GT World Challenge Europe