Raffaele Marciello, at the wheel of the #89 AKKODIS ASP Team Mercedes-AMG GT3, went quickest in the 60-minute Pre-Qualifying session for round two of the 2022 Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Powered by AWS. the opening weekend for the Sprint Cup series.
The Italian lapped the 2.433-mile (3.916 km) GP circuit in 1:21.889 early in the session in the car he shares with Timur Boguslavskiy, .215 seconds ahead of the sister #88 Mercedes in which Jules Gounon set a 1:22.104.
Third quickest was the #11 Tresor by Car Collection Audi R8 LMS driven by Simon Gachet and Christopher Haase, Gachet setting a 1:22.201.
In the Silver Cup category, the quickest lap was set by the #53 AF Corse Ferrari 488 GT3 driven by Ulysse de Pauw and Pierre Alexandre Jean with the #26 Sainteloc Junior Team Audi .079 seconds behind with a 1:22.364. The #30 Team WRT Audi of Benjamin Goethe and Thomas Neubauer completed the top three in class.
Pro-Am Cup honours went to the #78 Barwell Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 Evo driven by Ben Barker and Alex Malykhin.
The session was interrupted by two red flags. The first was to recover the #99 Attempto Racing Audi of Alex Aka and Nicolas Scholl after the Austrian pilot went off at Paddock Hill Bend with 42 minutes remaining on the session.
Valentino Rossi, competing at Brands Hatch for the first time in his long career, took over the #46 Audi with 23 minutes remaining but had an off-track excursion after five minutes and found himself stranded in the gravel at Stirlings.
Qualifying gets underway at 15:50 with the lights going out for Race One at 11:25 on Sunday May 1.