The #32 Team WRT BMW has begun the new Sprint Cup season as it ended the previous campaign by topping Free Practice 1 at Brands Hatch.
Kelvin van der Linde set a time of 1m23.260s to head the order in the car he shares with Charles Weerts. The defending champions were 0.274s ahead of Christopher Haase, who made a strong start to the Sprint campaign aboard the #84 Eastalent Racing Audi.
Bastian Buus was third in the #80 Lionspeed GP Porsche, 0.283s off top spot and just 0.009s shy of Haase. Four-time Brands Hatch winner Maro Engel was fourth in the #48 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG, ensuring that all four German brands were among the overall top four.
Dani Juncadella (#3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing) was fifth, followed by Valentino Rossi (#46 Team WRT BMW), Kobe Pauwels (#7 Comtoyou Racing Aston Martin) and Dorian Boccolacci (#2 Boutsen VDS Porsche).
Alex Aka was the fastest Gold Cup runner. The #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi was P10 overall with a time of 1m23.831s. Aleksei Nesov paced the Silver Cup in the #8 Pure Rxcing Porsche, finishing 13th overall with a 1m24.053s.
The one-hour session was red flagged after 15 minutes when Andrea Frassineti slid into the gravel in the #66 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi. The car was not severely damaged, but required assistance to return to the pits.
All but one of the 34-car field participated in the session, in which less than a second covered the first 21 places. The #54 Dinamic GT Porsche was kept in the garage by an electrical problem.
Cars will be back on-track at 12:00 BST for Free Practice 2.