Doriane Pin (Scuderia Niki – Iron Lynx) in the Trofeo Pirelli and Franz Engstler (Scuderia GT) in the Coppa Shell will start from the front of the grid in Race-1 of round four of the Ferrari Challenge Trofeo Pirelli Europe, in progress at Hockheneim. Ange Barde (SF Côte d’Azur Cannes - IB Fast) and Joakim Olander (Scuderia Autoropa) were the quickest in their respective Am classes.
Trofeo Pirelli. The current leader of the overall standings, Doriane Pin, took to the track only in the last five minutes of the qualifying session. She immediately set the best lap time of 1:41.168 to secure pole for the weekend's first race this afternoon, which promises to be a tight affair. Indeed, five drivers were bunched within less than a second of the young Frenchwoman: Luka Nurmi (Formula Racing) will start from second, followed by John Wartique (FML – D2P), rookie Conrad Laursen (Formula Racing), the returning Thomas Neubauer (Charles Pozzi – Courage) and former Formula 1 driver Adrian Sutil (Gohm Motorsport).
Ange Barde took his fifth consecutive pole in the Am, just sixty-six thousandths of a second ahead of Marco Pulcini (Al Tayer Motors). Third in class and eleventh overall, Hanno Laskowsky (Riller &Schnauck - ZvO Racing) will set off ahead of Nicolò Rosi (Kessel Racing), just twenty-four thousandths behind in fourth.
Coppa Shell. . Franz Engstler took pole position with a series of fast laps in a qualifying session that began with light rain and a damp track and ended under the sun. The German finished 1.0087 seconds ahead of Axel Sartingen (Lueg Sportivo – Herter Racing) and 1.723 in front of Thomas Gostner (CDP – MP Racing) in third. There was also a close battle for the other grid positions, with Roman Ziemian (FML – D2P), just behind the leaders in fourth, Fons Scheltema (Kessel Racing), fifth, Manuela Gostner (CDP – MP Racing), sixth, and Alessandro Giovanelli (Rossocorsa), seventh on his Ferrari Challenge debut.
In the Am, held separately due to the large numbers of participants, Joakim Olander set the fastest lap right at the end of the thirty minutes. He finished 283 thousandths ahead of Christian Herdt-Wipper (Saggio München), followed by Alexander Nussbaumer (Gohm Motorsport – Herter Racing) in third.
Programme. Trofeo Pirelli Race-1 will kick off this afternoon at 5.20pm, preceded at 2.20pm by the first Coppa Shell outing.