38 cars from the weekend's 44-car strong grid took to the track this Thursday afternoon. The 4.6 kilometres of Catalunyan asphalt basked in the warm late summer sun and allowed for four hours of intensive testing, only interrupted on a few occasions for minor recovery operations.
Even if test session results provide only basic indications of what's to come, it does seem that the GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club is heading into yet another interesting and unpredictable weekend.
A whopping 25 cars hit fastest lap times within a single second. The top 12 of those were noted by Silver Cup entries. And seven different brands made up for the top seven! An extremely diverse ranking it was, but only one single crew managed to break the 1'50''-barrier at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. That honour went to the #8 Xwift Racing Events Toyota GR Supra GT4 EVO, when Etienne Cheli hit a splendid 1'49.953 in the car's 39th lap around the track.
Six differently branded cars followed, with the #5 Mirage Racing Aston Martin, the #23 Overdrive Racing Porsche, the #78 Elite Motorsport with Entire Race Engineering McLaren and the #3 Team Speedcar Audi completing the top five.
The fastest lap in Pro-Am Cup was put on the boards by the #20 EastSide Motorsport Mercedes-AMG (Bulatov/Mayer) from 13th overall, just before the #76 Centri Porsche Ticino Cayman (Fontana/Hofmann) and the brand new entry by GPA Racing, Hasse-Clot/Detout in the #39 Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4.
No P1 in Am-Cup this time for the #10 AVR-Avvatar Porsche of Varutti/Piguet, who saw top spot stolen from them in the very final stages by the #75 Centri Porsche Ticino 718 Cayman GT4 RS CS of Jacoma/Leutwiler.
With all useful test data in the bag, all competitors now look ahead to a very busy final weekend in the GT4 European Series Powered by RAFA Racing Club. On Friday, cars take to the track for two Free Practice sessions of one hour each, starting at 11.20 CEST and 15.40 CEST.
The stakes become higher on Saturday, September 30th, when Qualifying goes green at 11.25 CEST and Race 1 will bring the final championship battles even closer as of 16.50 CEST. Race 2 at Barcelona concludes the season and starts Sunday at 11.20 CEST.
Both qualifying and the races will be streamed live in English, French and German via the GT4 European Series website and the GTWorld YouTube channel.
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Barcelona – Official Paid Test Session - Results