City Challenge Baku - Friday Practice Report

City Challenge Baku got underway on Friday with two free practice sessions ahead of this weekends street races in the Azerbaijan capital. BMW and McLaren were quickest in the two sessions, but it wasn’t all good for them.

In the first session it was the Vita4One BMW Z4 GT3 of Mathias Lauda and Frank Kechele that set the fastest time (1:05.947), just 0.006 seconds quicker than the Hexis Racing McLaren MP4-12C GT3 of Stef Dusseldorp and Fred Makowiecki. The second McLaren of Alvaro Parente and Rob Bell finished the session in third. Eight cars finished the first session within a second of each other.

Hours later it was the other way around with Hexis Racing setting the fastest time and two Vita4One Racing Team BMW’s taking second and third. Rob Bell set the fastest time of the day (1:04.254) and was over three tenths of a second quicker than the first of the two BMW’s.

The team’s third car, driven by former Le Mans and F1 drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Jos Verstappen, crashed in the second session, resulting in extensive front-end damage on the BMW.

“I wasn’t even going that fast, but I spun and hit the tyre barriers,” said Villeneuve. “We fear that the chassis is bent. Of course, we will try whatever we can do to get the car going again, but if there is the slightest risk, we will not do it. Safety is our utmost concern” added teamboss Michael Bartels.