Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter has topped the first official session of the centenary CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa after Lucas Auer set a 2m15.234s at the wheel of the #48 machine in free practice.
The Austrian driver was 0.227s faster than the #22 Schumacher CLRT Porsche of Laurin Heinrich, while the #2 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed entry of Fabian Schiller was a further 0.037s back. They were followed by a trio of Audis, led by the #28 Haas RT driven by Dennis Lind.
Next up was the #88 Tresor Attempto Racing machine, which paced the Gold Cup thanks to a 2m.15.527s from Lorenzo Ferrari. The sister #66 was next and also topped its class, with a 2m15.579s proving to be the best of the Bronze Cup runners.
RJN led Pro-Am with its #100 McLaren. The retuning British squad finished the session in P15 overall thanks to a 2m15.874s from Jann Mardenborough. The best of the Silver Cup runners was Gilles Stadsbader, who finished P35 overall aboard the #26 Saintéloc Racing Audi.
Notably, Auer's time represents another new GT3 lap record at Spa-Francorchamps – and probably not the last this week – following recent resurfacing work at the Belgian track. What's more, 55 of the 66 cars that took part in today's session were faster than last year's Superpole winner.
There were three red flag stoppages during Free Practice. The first came after 20 minutes and was caused by Mateo Llarena (#19 Grasser Racing Lamborghini) finding the gravel at T2.
There was plenty of clear running thereafter, until Jef Machiels (#52 AF Corse Ferrari) hit the barriers at T3 with 30 minutes to go. A final stoppage came within the final 10 minutes after the #9 Boutsen VDS Mercedes-AMG stopped at T9.
Cars will be back on-track at 16:30 for a one-hour Pre-Qualifying session. The event's main Qualifying begins at 20:35 and will signal the start of live coverage – which remains absolutely free to view – on the GTWorld YouTube channel.