LP Racing produced a dominant performance in today’s Fanatec GT2 European Series Powered by Pirelli Qualifying at Hockenheim. Philippe Prette (#2 Maserati GT2) scored his second outright pole of the season for Race 1, while the sister entry of Pierre Kaffer and Michael Doppelmayr (#18 Audi R8 LMS GT2) bagged top spot for Sunday’s second outing.
A closely fought opening phase of Qualifying chopped and changed before Prette unleashed an effort of 1:42.640s in the closing minutes, confirming his place at the front of the grid for tomorrow’s opening race.
The Italian was the best of three Am class competitors who finished inside the top four. They were broken up by Team MZR’s Martin Koch (KTM X-BOW GT2), who was 0.223s behind in second overall to score a crucial point as the best-placed Pro-Am runner.
Am class points leader Alexandre Leroy was third overall aboard the #24 TFT Racing Maserati, keeping his nearest title contender at bay as Gilles Vannelet grabbed fourth in the #87 Akkodis ASP Mercedes-AMG GT2.
Behind were four more Mercedes-AMG entries, with Mauro Ricci leading the sister Akkodis ASP machine of Christoppe Bourret. Stéphane Perrin followed closely in seventh for NM Racing, chased by Eric De Doncker in eighth for Motorsport 98. A pair of KTMs rounded out the top 10, Thomas Andersen qualifying ninth for Razoon - More Than Racing with Sehdi Sarmini on his tail in 10th for True Racing.
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The times tumbled in the second part of Qualifying. As was the case last time out at Spa, Kaffer left it late to snatch bragging rights for the Audi crew with an ultimate best of 1:40.697s. Pro-Am squads monopolised the top five spots, with Reinhard Kofler matching the efforts of Koch to place the #812 KTM just 0.4s adrift in second position.
Benjamin Ricci (#61 Akkodis ASP) threatened to repeat his session-topping heroics from Pre-Qualifying, finishing third ahead of the similar #98 Mercedes-AMG of Loris Hezemans (Motorsport 98). The second LP Racing Audi rounded out the top five thanks to series returnee Stefan Rosina.
Prette was again quickest of the Am runners, finishing sixth in the overall classification ahead of his class rival Leroy and Jörg Viebahn, who was eighth for NM Racing. Simon Birch matched what his compatriot Andersen achieved in the #80 KTM by finishing ninth, with Pascal Gibon rounding out the top 10 aboard the Mercedes-AMG he shares with Bourret.
Misfortune struck Pro-Am title contenders Leonardo Gorini and Carlo Tamburini, as they failed to set a competitive lap time over both sessions when issues hamstrung the #1 LP Racing Maserati. They start 12th and 13th for the two contests.
Attention now shifts to Sunday’s pair of 50-minute races in Germany, which commence at 10:25 and 15:40 respectively. Watch the action unfold live via the series’ website and the GT World YouTube channel, with commentary available in four different languages.