Iron Lynx topped the Pre-Qualifying session ahead of Saturday’s Paul Ricard 1000km as both of its Ferrari 488 GT3s topped the evening session of Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe powered by AWS’ second trip to France of the year.

From the very start of the 90-minute session, which sets the grid if tomorrow’s qualifying sessions can’t be held for whatever reason, the Iron Lynx squad was up at the sharp end. 

After the first flurry of activity, the #51 of James Calado was lying in second – a fraction behind early pacesetter Christopher Mies in the Saintéloc Junior Team Audi R8 LMS GT3.

It was only a few minutes later when Calado knocked Mies off his perch, with a lap three-tenths quicker than the German’s best – a 1m54.378sec.

Just after the 30-minute mark, there was a slight threat to the lead as Nick Yelloly went on a charge in the Rowe Racing BMW M4 GT3, but moved to just second – 0.186sec down.

That quickly became third, as Antonio Fuoco unleashed a lap rapid enough to make it a Ferrari 1-2 – his lap in the #71 0.050sec better than the sister Iron Lynx.

Mies ended the session fourth, a hair’s width ahead of the #32 Team WRT entry of Dries Vanthoor, Charles Weerts and Kelvin van der Linde which was also 0.024sec of the top Gold-class car, the #5 Haupt Racing Team Mercedes-AMG GT3.

Such is the competitiveness of the grid, you have to go down all the way to 17th to find the first of the cars not in the 1m54sec bracket – the Tresor by Car Collection Audi just falling outside that time. 

Within that second, was the leading Silver Cup entry of Attempto Racing – Nicolas Schöll setting the #99’s best time – and the Pro-Am leading CMR Bentley Continental GT3, Antonin Borga’s 1m54.883sec good enough for 11th overall. 

Notable elsewhere, the fastest of the Lamborghini Huracáns was the #63 of Emil Frey Racing in 16th – four places ahead of the #54 Dinamic Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R, the fastest entry for the German brand.

Qualifying proper gets underway at 11.30 CEST (10.30 UK) on Saturday with the six-hour race later on Saturday evening, beginning 18.00 local (17.00 UK).

 
 

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