Veloso Motorsport’s Porsche 718 Cayman CS RS, driven by Gonçalo Fernandes and Francisco Mora, set the fastest lap in this morning’s free practice session at the Autódromo Internacional do Algarve.
Preparations for today’s qualifying sessions and tomorrow’s races wrapped up with this morning’s practice. Like in previous test runs, the Veloso Motorsport Porsche’s duo finished at the top of the standings, clocking a 1m51.441s lap—the best time recorded so far this event.
Despite the quickening pace, competitiveness remains high, with only 0.6 seconds separating the top seven drivers, setting up an exciting and closely contested qualifying session this afternoon.
César Machado and Jan Durán, frontrunners for the GT4 Pro and overall GT4 titles, took second place in their Toyota GR Supra GT4, beating the NM Racing Team’s Mercedes AMG GT4, driven by Guillermo Aso and Filip Vava, by just 0.007s. Aso and Vava currently lead the Supercars Jarama RACE standings.
In the following position was José Pires, in the Racar Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4, who also topped the GT4 Bronze class, finishing only half a second behind the leaders.
Other key GT4 overall and GT4 Pro title contenders encountered difficulties. Manuel Gião and Mathieu Martins, also driving a Racar Motorsport Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT4, managed only the eighth-fastest time due to transmission issues, limiting their track time.
The BMW M4 GT4 from BMW España Motorsport also struggled to show its usual performance, with Nerea Martí and José de los Milagros finishing 17th, more than two seconds adrift of Fernandes and Mora’s Porsche.
In GT4 Am, Miguel and André Nabais, driving a Speedy Motorsport Porsche 718 Cayman RS CS, reinforced their title bid with the fastest time. Keith Gatehouse and Igor Sorokin, in the NM Racing Team’s Mercedes AMG GT4, finished in second, putting them in a strong position to defend their lead in the standings.
Daniel Teixeira, in the JT59 Racing Team’s Hyundai Elantra N TCR, who missed yesterday’s test sessions, proved fastest in both TCR and Touring Car classes, beating Beatriz Correia and Portuguese former hillclimb champion José Correia in the JC Group Racing Team’s Cupra TCR.
Among the FPAK Junior Team’s Ginetta G40 cars in the TC division, Ruben Silva and Rodrigo Ferreira took the top spot, outpacing Henrique Moura Oliveira and Henrique Ventura Oliveira by 0.7s.
Series newcomers Pompeu Simões and Duarte Camelo surprised in the GTX class, placing their Porsche Cayman GT4 CS at the top of the leaderboard with a half-second lead over Andrius Zeimatis in a Porsche Cayman GT4 MR. This result led to a Speedy Motorsport one-two finish.
Rui Miritta (Monteiros Competições) returned to the top of the Cup class timing charts, with usual rivals Marcus Fothergill and Dave Benett (Tockwith Motorsports) in second, followed by newcomers Frederico Formiga and Frederico Castro from Art of Speed.
Today’s qualifying sessions begin at 16:10 and can be followed live on the competition’s official Instagram page.
Comments