Laurens Vanthoor left it until the last lap of Free Practice Two at Misano until he set his marker in the sand prior to the first race of the Blancpain GT Series Sprint Cup.
The Belgian Audi Club Team WRT driver showed how strong the Audi R8 LMS around the Adriatic coast circuit on what was another wet session.
Until the Belgian’s last gasp 1:51.769, it was Garage 59’s Rob Bell that was in pole position for a good chunk of the session having set what was seemingly an unbeatable 1:52.125 in the McLaren 650S.
Following closely behind, and breaking up the Audi cabal that had formed in FP1, was Jazeman Jafaar in the HTP Motorsport Mercedes AMG GT3 who clocked a very competitive 1:52.316 to put himself just ahead of Enzo Ide in the second of many Team WRT Audis.
Fastest in the Silver Cup was Luca Stolz in the GRT Grasser Racing Team Lamborghini Huracan GT3 whose time of 1:52.949 was enough to put him in ninth place overall.
In the Pro-Am category the fastest car was the only Porsche 911 GT3R in the 39 car field, the Team a-workx entry driven by Didi Gonzales. Gonzales set a time of 1:55.163 to put him 27th overall.
The Am category probably provided the most excitement with class leader X-Bionic Racing setting both the fastest time and bringing out the only red flag of the session as Jenny Laurent hit the tyre wall with the team’s Lamborghini Huracan.
Notable elsewhere in the 38 car field that set out for the second free practice session were the relatively low positions for the two Nissan GT Academy Team RJN Nissan GT-R GT3s which ended 30th and 34th for Mitsunori Takaboshi and Sean Walkinshaw respectively.
There was also another Vanthoor in the top ten as younger brother Dries squeaked into the top ten with a 1:53.050 in yet another Team WRT Audi R8 LMS.
The qualifying race takes place tomorrow at 7:50pm UK time with an hour race into the night.
