Twenty-six cars took the track for the two free practice sessions that opened the 2025 season of the GT Cup Europe at Portimão, in a sunny and windy Friday.
Heroes of the day were Laura van den Hengel and Paul Meijer, the Dutch duo of the debuting Burgers Motorsport by HWM, whose Porsche 992 was fastest in both sessions. The time posted in the morning (1.45.754) was bound to be the best of the day.
Second-fastest was one of the new Ferraris 296, entered by Mertel Motorsport for Simone Patrinicola-Luca Demarchi (+0s325), who preceeded the Porsches of Nico Saelens-Stienes Longin (Q1 Trackracing, +0s452), Evgenii Leonov (Volcano Motorsport, +0s514), Ian Rodriguez-Luca Franca (FAEMS, +0s630) and Davide Scannicchio-Fabio Babini (Tsunami, +0s643), who were the fastest in Pro-Am.
Topping the Am rankings was new-comer Fran Viel Bugliotti, in one of the GDL Racing 992s, although the Argentine could not avoid hitting the barriers in session 2, with some damage to the rear of the car.
In the Bronze session, Nico Saelens was fastest (1.46.801) ahead of the Brazilan duo of LMR Motorsport, Diego Nunes-Peter Ferter.