After enduring a tough time recently in the 2018 DTM Series, BMW driver Bruno Spengler topped the time sheets for the First Free Practice Session of the weekend on a drying track at the Nurburgring, with a time of 1:26.163.
The Canadian was 15-hundredths of a second quicker than Audi’s Loic Duval, with his BMW team-mate Timo Glock a further 5-hundredths further behind. So after only picking up a single point in the past three race meetings, Spengler has started racing action at the Nurburgring in the best possible fashion ahead of his 100th race for BMW on Sunday.
Behind the top three, Augusto Farfus made it three BMW’s inside the top four, some four and a half tenths of a second behind his more experienced team-mate Glock. Daniel Juncadella meanwhile was the highest-placed Mercedes AMG driver with a time of 1 min 28.629 s.
As for the top two in the standings, Paul Di Resta and Gary Paffett, they ended the session in 16th and 18th places, some 6.9 and 7.6 s off the pace respectively.
After the First Practice Session, Second-placed Loic Duval said it was a good way to start the weekend, although he expects the rest of the weekend to be different due to the weather.
“A good start of the weekend,” said Duval on DTM.com. “In the changeable conditions, we started with rain tyres and then changed to slicks later on.
“We were in the top five throughout the session. For tomorrow, we still have some work to do. The weather conditions will most probably be different.”
The Second Free Practice Session will get underway at 08:30, before qualifying for the first race getting underway at 11:15 local time on Saturday Morning, ahead of the first race of the weekend commencing at 13:30 local time.
