The Session started with fine weather, but question marks over whether times would improve.
Bad news from last night, the #64 Black Falcon Porsche was unable to be repaired and has been posted as a retirement.
Immediately out of the pits, #80 Porsche of Kevin Warum had a wheel collapse on him, having to pull off.
Edoardo Bugan in the #248 hit the wall and the huge amount of fluid leaking at Wippermann would ruin the early part of the session.
Jens Klingmana was trying his best in the Falken BMW M6 through the first two sectors, but the slow zone would prevent an overall fast lap.
Quite a few of the fast cars already booked into the top 30 were pushing hard on track early, you might have expected them to use this as a test session but the timing screen showed a lot of individual best sector times throughout the afternoon.
Another incident involving a Porsche bought out a slow zone half an hour into the session at Hocheichen, but the marshals got the car rescued quickly.
At half distance, the track went green all around the circuit providing an opportunity for the hammer to be thrown down.
The big fight at the pointy end of the field was for the final place in the top 30 shoot-out later; at half distance we saw the #10 Konrad Lambo 0.021 seconds ahead of the Renault RS01 with Dieter Schmidtmann behind the wheel.
Very near disaster at the Flugplatz for Michael Eden in his SP8T class BMW, no slow zone required but the car stationary at the side of the track for some time.
Aremberg would be the site of the next slow zone – again, no stranded car, but somebody had dented the barriers.
Some quick times coming in the lower classes with new class pole times for Michael Schrey #244 (BMW M235 class) & Volker Strycek in the Foxtail (SP3), but problems in the production class cars as Charles Oakes was seen touring through the forest in his team Adrenalin BMW
An incredible sequence of laps would first see Kuno Wittmer take a lead of 6 seconds ahead of the Konrad Lambo, before Brueck would improve by a further 3 seconds pushing the Renault RS01 back out of the top 30 shoot-out.
With half hour on the clock , the BMW Cup cars decided to grab the attention with #239 the Leutheuser Racing machine touring through Klostertal & #247 of Andreas Ott off at Schwalbenschwanz.
The factory Subaru #90 was still inside the top 50, but vulnerable with a power steering failure.
Then the big one – #89 Audi TT hit the barrier at flugplatz, got airborne and flipped.
With barrier damage, debris & oil everywhere; there would be no chance for lap time improvements.
Importantly, Rudi Speich clearly not in the best of health and taken away in the ambulance but at least he is conscious & walking.
Provisional class pole positions would therefore be
SP7 #57 Gigaspeed Porsche 911 34th overall
SP8T #190 Bernd Schneider Mercedes GT4 37th
SP8 #41 Nicolaj Madsen Audi R8 GT4 40th
AT #320 Care for Climate Porsche 911 42nd
TCR #831 Nicola Larini Hyundai 43rd
Cup X #202 Stuck Brothers KTM 47th
SP3T #90 Carlo van Dam Subaru WRX 48th
Cup 3 #303 Jürgen von Gartzen Porsche Cayman 49th
SP10 #74 Walkenhorst BMW M4 59th
SP6 #80 FAMILIA Porsche 997 70th
Cup 5 #244 Michael Schrey BMW M235 86th
SP3 #120 Kissling Opel Manta 100th
V6 #137 Thorsten Held Porsche Cayman 104th
V5 #144 Adrenalin Porsche Cayman 108th
V4 #156 Yutaka Seki BMW E90 120th
SP4T #86 Jose Visir VW Golf 124th
SP4 #325 Scuderia Solagon BMW 325 127th
V2T #165 FAMILIA Renault Megane 137th
V3T #718 Ralf Zensen Porsche Cayman 138th
149 Cars in total set a lap time either yesterday or today in qualifying.
