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Hankook Tyres sponsored Ferrari F458 Italia GT on the way to setting provisional pole

I talked earlier about some things not changing. Well comparing first (night) qualifying this year to last for the ADAC 24h Rennen at Nürburgring, whilst the weather was much better, one thing was the same - the fastest car on provisional pole ended up being the Hankook Tyres sponsored Farnbacher Ferrari.

This year however, its the new F458 Italia GT, as opposed to the F430 GTC they ran last year (to score 2nd place at the end). With the same experienced quartet behind the wheel, they're showing they're up for the challenge, and I'm sure they're hoping to move up one rung on the ladder come sunday afternoon!

The provisional pole time was 8m23.754 - much quicker than the times set in free practice earlier - this is due to the track being properly dry - and also potentially the cooler evening air may be helping the engines somewhat.

Black Falcon Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 #22

Next two quickest cars were both Mercedes SLS AMGs, with the Black Falcon #22 (8m30.381) car just edging out the #30 Mamerow car (8m30.957), but they were quite a long way back (~7 seconds)

It is understood that the manufacturer backed teams were generally just setting 'banker' laps this evening, and preparing for race set up, rather than going for all out pace... but should it rain during Qualification 2 tomorrow, the grid now is how it will end up.

Audi Sport Team ABT Sportsline Audi R8 LMS #16 throwing sparks!

The quickest Audi R8 was 4th, and was the #16 Team Audi ABT Sportsline one, with a 8m31.536, which can be seen above showering the track in sparks after grounding its splitter on the mini karussel!

Fastest Porsche was the Manthey RSR (#18) in 6th, with a 8m32.079.

More tomorrow when I can string sentences together coherently again...but what I can say is its shaping up to be an excellent race weekend!