GT World Challenge Europe Nürburgring Friday Notebook: Typical 'Eifel flair' and more set-up work ahead

It was a typical Eifel day at the Nürburgring, where wind, rain and sunshine – sometimes all at the same time – gave some teams a bit of a headache. Luckily, they have enough time to prepare the set-up for the rest of the weekend after a busy test day. GT REPORT asked Jules Gounon, Alessio Picariello and Huub van Eijndhoven about their first metres of the weekend.

The GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup continues this weekend on the Nürburgring, where Mercedes-AMG Team MANN-FILTER can already claim the title. As usual, it’s going to be a packed weekend and the Eifel flair will play a big role.

A couple of red flags, one of them due to the crashing #7 Comtoyou Aston Martin AMR GT3 Vantage, stopped the session for a bit, while teams were overall working steadily on their preparation ahead of the first free practice, that is scheduled for Saturday morning.

“It was a bit of a struggle today,” Gounon tells GT REPORT. “But it’s good, because we’re on Friday and we still have Saturday to fix it. I have full trust in my guys and my team, Mercedes-AMG Team Verstappen Racing, to turn it around,” he says.

Gounon explains that the set-up needs finetuning to dial the car in for another raceweekend on the Nürburgring. It’s obvious that the speed is there, looking at the results of the team in Misano and Magny-Cours – two weekends that formed ‘break throughs’ for them after a difficult first half.

A place many drivers ‘respect and enjoy’

Nevertheless, it’s good to be back at the Nürburgring. The competition is fierce and anything can happen this weekend. Boutsen VDS is on the prowl for more endurance highlights after their top five-result in Monza and a disappointing end to the Spa 24 Hours.

“I’m happy to be back in the GT World Challenge Endurance after quite a break. Nürburgring is a place that I really like. I have good memories here, already back in the single-seaters,” Porsche Works Driver Picariello tells this website.

“I spent quite a lot of time here earlier this year because of the Nordschleife programme, so it’s a place that I enjoy. Sometimes the weather can be tricky, but we accept it when we are at The Ring, so it’s all good.” Picariello had his birthday on the 27th of August, and hopes to celebrate properly, with cake, champagne and a trophy, on Sunday.

Taking good Nürburgring memories into the weekend

Like Picariello, Porsche driver Van Eijndhoven also has good memories on the Nürburgring. The Dutchman has visited the track many times during his career in the Porsche one-make series, as the Porsche Sixt Carrera Cup Germany are a support series of DTM. Now he’s racing as a ‘headliner’.

“I’ve been here many times, but actually I don’t have a lot of experience with the Grand Prix track. With DTM we always raced the sprint lay-out. But it’s good, we have good engineers with us, experienced teammates. I’m learning a lot,” Van Eijndhoven says.

“It was supposed to rain very hard this morning, but our session was actually quite dry. That was good. The rest of the weekend should be dry too, which is good to get into the rhythm.”