Jordan Pepper put Lamborghini on top at home in Friday evening's Pre-Qualifying session at Misano. The CrowdStrike 24 Hours of Spa winner posted a 1m32.393s to very narrowly beat Vincent Abril.
Grasser Racing driver Engstler was just 0.004s quicker than the #51 AF Corse Francorchamps Motors Ferrari, which was fast again after Alessio Rovera led this afternoon's Free Practice. Both squads need strong results this weekend to stay in the Sprint Cup title fight – and, on the evidence of Friday, both have a real chance.
AlManar Racing by WRT demonstrated that the BMW is also very fast at Misano by placing third overall and topping the Gold Cup classification. Jens Klingmann was at the wheel of the #777 machine, posting a time that was just 0.096s shy of Engstler's benchmark.
The #50 AF Corse Francorchamps Motors Ferrari was fourth courtesy of Arthur Leclerc. Next up was Dennis Marschall, who once again led the Bronze Cup class in the #74 Kessel Racing Ferrari. The best Silver Cup car was once again the #99 Tresor Attempto Racing Audi, which placed 12th overall with Alex Aka at the wheel.
The remainder of the top 10 was completed by the #32 Team WRT BMW, the #14 Emil Frey Racing Ferrari, the #46 Team WRT BMW, the #89 Lionspeed GP Porsche and the #991 Paradine Competition BMW. Notably, Mercedes-AMG was absent from this group, the best of its cars placing 15th overall.
The one-hour session ran without interruption and saw the top 25 cars covered by less than a second, while just 1.8 seconds covered the entire 43-car field. Qualifying 1 takes place tomorrow at midday, followed by Race 1 at 20:15. Live streaming begins on Saturday and continues for the remainder of the weekend.
> RESULTS: Pre-Qualifying