Last year's race-winning BMW led the way in Saturday morning's Free Practice 1 at the Nürburgring. Raffaele Marciello put the #98 ROWE Racing entry on top with a 1m54.855s, pacing a session in which the fastest 29 cars were separated by exactly one second.
Arthur Rougier was second quickest in the #111 CSA Racing McLaren. The Frenchman was 0.115s shy of Marciello's benchmark and comfortably fastest in the Gold Cup class.
Five different brands were present in the overall top five, with third going to the #3 Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing entry of Jules Gounon, followed by Max Hesse (#46 Team WRT BMW) and Jamie Day (#34 natural elements by Walkenhorst Motorsport Aston Martin).
Next came the #17 Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed, the #64 HRT Ford, and the #60 JMW Ferrari. The latter was driven by Thierry Vermeulen, who is part of a heavily revised line-up this weekend which also features Konsta Lappalainen and the continuing Tim Heinemann.
The #30 Team WRT BMW could clinch the Silver Cup title this weekend and began in the best possible manner by leading its class. Matisse Lismont set the time, which was good enough for ninth overall. The #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi completed the top 10 thanks to Alex Aka and was second in the Gold Cup.
The best of the Bronze Cup runners was one spot back in P11. German driver Marvin Dienst has impressed on a regular basis this season and was on form again in the #87 Winward Racing Mercedes-AMG, putting his car on top of the class. Second in Bronze went to the #177 Grupo Prom Mercedes-AMG of Colin Caresani, who was 0.041s adrift of Dienst.
There were no serious incident during the session, though a red flag was briefly displayed to allow gravel to be cleared. Cars will be back on track at 16:15 for Free Practice 2, which also airs live on the GT World YouTube channel.
