Denis Remenyako built on his early weekend form shown during Friday paid testing by setting the fastest lap in Saturday’s free practice session at Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya.
The Capital Racing Team driver turned in a time of 1m 47.681 behind the wheel of the #13 Mercedes-AMG GT3 to lead the first session of the weekend to feature the full Blancpain GT Sports Club grid.
Remenyako traded the top spot with Coach McKansy midway through the 45-minute run but stretched his legs in the second half, becoming the only driver to break the 1m 48s barrier.
McKansy’s time of 1m 48.220 put the HP Racing International Lamborghini Huracan GT3 into second overall at the end, while Overall points leader Jens Reno Moller placed third in the Reno Racing Honda NSX GT3.
The top five cars in free practice were separated by less than a second, setting a mood of excitement ahead of qualifying which takes place this afternoon.
Luigi Lucchini, the winner of race one at Circuit Paul Ricard earlier in the season, placed fourth in his Ferrari 458 GT3 prepared by BMS Scuderia Italia.
Completing the top five was Murod Sultanov, who was at the wheel of one of three Kessel Racing Ferrari 488 GT3s entered this weekend.
James Sofronas went sixth quickest in the WRT-run Audi R8 LMS GT2 after leading the early stages of the session. The American driver, who is making his Blancpain GT Sports Club debut this weekend, gave Audi’s newest sports car a baptism of fire ahead of its international race debut.
Sofronas was followed in the timings by Angelique Detavernier, who took seventh place ahead of the closely matched Iron Cup pair of Stephan Earle and Rick Lovat.
Earle ended up leading the Iron Cup class, but Lovat finished just 0.152 seconds shy of his rival.
Frederic Fangio rounded out the overall top ten after making a late improvement in his Spirit of Race-entered Ferrari 488 GT3.
With Free Practice complete, attention now turns to the two back-to-back qualifying sessions that will determine the grids for this weekend’s pair of Blancpain GT Sports Club races.
The first qualifying bracket gets underway at 12:00 local time. You can follow live coverage of this on the Blancpain GT Sports Club website and Facebook page.