Mercedes-AMG remains imperious at Monza. After leading both pre-event tests on Friday and utterly dominating Free Practice on Saturday morning, the German marque maintained its place at the head of the order by finishing one-two in the afternoon's Pre-Qualifying.
Once again it was Jules Gounon who posted the quickest lap – a 1m46.003s – to put GetSpeed on top of the classification. "So far we are working well. That's the main focus," said the Andorran. "We have been working very hard with two days of testing, and the work we did in the winter is paying off." However, Gounon was very clear that today was only practice; tomorrow is what counts.
The #9 Boutsen VDS machine was second quickest thanks to Maxime Martin, who was 0.044s adrift of Gounon. Third was a dead heat: the #63 Grasser Racing Lamborghini and the #48 Mercedes-AMG Team Mann-Filter both clocked a 1m46.129s. Such is the level of competition in GT World Challenge.
Mercedes-AMG also topped the Silver Cup classification with the #6 GetSpeed entry placing sixth overall. The #33 Verstappen.com Racing Aston Martin was the best of the Gold Cup class in P10, followed by the #188 Garage 59 McLaren which led the Bronze Cup.
There were two red flags during the session. The first was caused by Ivan Klymenko losing control of the #26 Saintéloc Racing Audi and beaching the car at Lesmo 2. The second came at the very end when Arthur Leclerc suffered a high-speed spin at Parabolica; the #50 Ferrari swapped ends and hit the barriers. The Monegasque was able to walk away, but this accident brought an early end to the session.
A total of 57 cars contested Pre-Qualifying. The #270 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin was a certain absence from this session following its heavy crash in Free Practice, while the #96 Rutronik racing Porsche came to a halt at pit exit at the very start of proceedings.
Qualifying runs at 09:50 on Sunday morning, followed by the weekend's main event – a three-hour Endurance Cup race – at 15:00. Both will air live on the GT World YouTube channel in English, French, Italian and German.