Charles Weerts put Team WRT on top at Circuit Paul Ricard as Fanatec GT Europe completed the first day of its 2024 Prologue.
The Belgian driver led the morning session with a 1m53.166s at the wheel of the #32 BMW, edging out early pace-setter 2 Seas Motorsport (#60 Mercedes-AMG). GetSpeed ensured a strong start for Mercedes-AMG by placing third and fourth with its #2 and #3 cars respectively, while ROWE Racing (#998 BMW) completed the top-five.
There were a handful of stoppages during the morning, though only one lasted more than a few moments. It came shortly before midday when the #7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin crashed at turn 7, causing a pause of around 15 minutes.
The afternoon session also ended with the #32 BMW on top, albeit a little slower than during the morning run with a best time of 1m53.324s. It was followed by the #111 CSA Racing Audi (+0.025s), the #992 Century Motorsport BMW (+0.027s) and the #97 Rutronik Racing Porsche (+0.100s) all of which were within a tenth of the afternoon benchmark.
Once again there were a handful of red flags, one of which was reasonably lengthy. On this occasion it was the #52 AF Corse Ferrari, which made heavy rear contact with the T11 barriers at around 15:20 local time and caused another 15-minute delay. Two more relatively brief stoppages followed due to the #13 Lionspeed GP Porsche and the #19 Grasser Racing Lamborghini respectively.
A number of cars were able to complete extensive running across the two sessions. The #3 GetSpeed Mercedes-AMG banked a total of 80 laps before the lunch break, while the #8 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG, the #54 Dinamic GT Porsche and the #77 HRT Mercedes-AMG all managed 79 tours of Circuit Paul Ricard.
In the afternoon session – which was one hour shorter than the morning – the #30 Team WRT BMW led the way with 63 laps on the board. There were also strong totals for the #54 Dinamic Porsche (56 laps) and the #27 Saintéloc Racing Audi (52 laps). The #30 BMW ended the day with the highest total, managing almost 800 kilometres across seven hours of running.
Cars will be back on-track tomorrow at 09:00 CET for the second and final day of the 2024 Fanatec GT Europe Prologue.
> Morning Session Results
> Afternoon Session Results
