Dries Vanthoor set a rapid pace in today's second Blancpain GT World Challenge Europe practice outing at Misano, with the Belgian Audi Club Team WRT ace beating his nearest challenger but almost half a second.
Vanthoor hit the front shortly after the half-way mark in the 80-minute session, recording a 1m34.020s lap aboard his #2 Audi R8 LMS to go well clear of the opposition. The Belgian knocked Christopher Hasse (#25 Sainteloc Audi) off the top, before Maro Engel moved into second with a time of 1m34.454s.
Fourth overall – and again the quickest of the Silver Cup contenders – was the #90 AKKA ASP Mercedes-AMG machine of Fabian Schiller, while the sister #87 topped Pro-Am for the second session running thanks to French ace Jim Pla.
Am Cup honours also remained in the same hands, with the #444 HB Racing Ferrari of Florian Scholze edging the #13 GetSpeed Performance Mercedes-AMG.
The session concluded a day of high temperatures at Misano, though teams and drivers coped well despite the heat. FP2 was punctuated by two brief red flag periods, both of which were due to debris on-track. In both cases, running was able to resume with little delay once marshals had cleared the circuit.
The weekend will heat up even more on Saturday, which sees qualifying take place at 14.30 followed by the opening 60-minute race at 19.45. The weekend will conclude with a second race at 14.00 on Sunday afternoon. All of the action will be streamed live on the Blancpain GT Series website.