The GT World Challenge powered by AWS Prologue concluded on Thursday afternoon following a further four hours of running at Circuit Paul Ricard.
Christopher Haase topped the charts at the wheel of the #84 Eastalent Racing Audi with a 1m54.352s. This was the best time of this year's Prologue, beating yesterday's pace-setter Thomas Preining (#80 Lionspeed GP Porsche) by three tenths.
Second quickest on Thursday was the #2 Boutsen VDS Porsche, which was 0.283s off the ultimate pace with Alessio Picariello at the wheel. Ricardo Feller was third in the Lionspeed-run 911, followed by another Porsche – the #91 Herberth Motorsport entry driven by Robert Renauer (below).
There were two incidents during the session, both involving Aston Martins. Jamie Day crashed heavily at Turn 7 in the #34 Walkenhorst Motorsport machine, causing significant front-end damage to his car. The British driver was okay, but went to the medical centre for precautionary checks.
The second incident saw Mari Boya lose control of the #18 Comtoyou Racing entry exiting Turn 2, sending the car into the barriers at high speed. This impact – and the resulting damage – appeared to be less severe, though it was still a setback for the Belgian squad.
Track action resumes at 09:00 on Friday morning with the Bronze Test. This is followed by Free Practice 1 at 14:25 and Free Practice 2 at 19:25, both of which run for 90 minutes.
Qualifying and the season-opening six-hour race will run on Saturday and can be watched live on the GT World YouTube channel. Click here for more information.