Preining fastest in the smooth N24 warm-up – Sportscar365

Thomas Preining drove the fastest time in the warm-up of the 52nd Nürburgring 24, which took place without any major incidents.

The Austrian drove a time of 8:17.134 in the Porsche 911 GT3 R No. 911 from Manthey EMA, making him the fastest in the 45-minute session on Saturday afternoon.

The “Grello” Porsche was already at the top of the timesheets thanks to an earlier 8:17.761 from Preining’s co-driver Kevin Estre, before Preining showed an improved performance and saw the checkered flag.

With a similar last-minute effort, Maro Engel in the No. 130 Mercedes-AMG GT3 Evo of Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed ​​​​seized second place, recording a time of 8:17.825, 0.691 seconds behind Preining.

Mercedes-AMG drivers occupied the majority of the top five, with places two to five all coming from the Stuttgart brand.

Mikael Grenier took third place in the No. 8 GetSpeed ​​​​car ahead of Schnitzelalm Racing’s Marcel Marchewicz and Frank Bird in the No. 3 Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein car.

Augusto Farfus finished sixth in the No. 99 BMW M4 GT3 of ROWE Racing ahead of Maximilian Götz, Christopher Haase and Marco Wittmann.

Marco Holzer completed the top ten at the wheel of the Dinamic GT Porsche 911 GT3 R No. 54.

The 52nd race of the Nürburgring 24 Hours starts at 16:00 CEST (10:00 EDT). The BMW M Team RMG No. 72 crew will start from pole position.

Davey Euwema is the European editor of Sportscar365. Euwema lives in the Netherlands and covers, among others, the FIA ​​​​World Endurance Championship, the European Le Mans Series and the Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS.