{"id":1937,"date":"2026-08-29T11:26:48","date_gmt":"2026-08-29T11:26:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/?p=1937"},"modified":"2026-08-29T11:26:57","modified_gmt":"2026-08-29T11:26:57","slug":"rowe-racing-bmw-takes-control-in-early-nurburgring-free-practice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/rowe-racing-bmw-takes-control-in-early-nurburgring-free-practice\/","title":{"rendered":"ROWE Racing BMW Takes Control in Early N\u00fcrburgring Free Practice"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup action kicked off at the iconic N\u00fcrburgring GP-Strecke with the opening Free Practice session. Teams hit the track in Eifel to refine setups, manage high-density multi-class traffic, and measure their initial pace.<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Leading the timing sheets at the end of the initial hour-and-a-half run was ROWE Racing. Factory driver Raffaele Marciello spearheaded the charge in the #98 BMW M4 GT3 EVO, asserting the German marque\u2019s strong baseline performance at their home venue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strategic Priorities Across the 50-Plus Field<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Free Practice 1 serves as a critical window for engineering crews to establish baseline setups before the high-stakes qualifying rounds and three-hour Endurance Cup race. With over 50 GT3 cars spanning Pro, Gold, Silver, and Bronze Cup categories sharing the 5.137-kilometer layout, clear track space was a rare commodity throughout the session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drivers spent much of the morning working through traffic management strategies and long-run tire evaluations. Finding a rhythm through complex sequences like the Michael-Schumacher-S and the tight Arena section proved essential, as rubber laid down during earlier testing sessions rapidly transformed track grip levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Front-Runners Set the Early Standard<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Raffaele Marciello laid down the benchmark lap late in the running to put ROWE Racing on top.<\/sup> Sharing the #98 BMW M4 GT3 EVO alongside Augusto Farfus and Jake Dennis, Marciello demonstrated sharp one-lap speed while maintaining consistent sector times across his stint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chasing closely behind were several top-tier entries from competing manufacturers. Teams like Mercedes-AMG Team GetSpeed, Comtoyou Racing with their Aston Martin Vantage AMR GT3 EVOs, and Iron Lynx Ferraris kept the gap at the top within fractions of a second.<\/sup> The tightly stacked leaderboard highlights how small the margins remain among the front-running Pro Cup contenders heading into the rest of the weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Class Battles and Upper-Hand Surprises<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

While the Pro Cup contenders captured the overall headline times, the fight across the lower-tier categories produced intense battles. Gold and Bronze Cup entries frequently intermingled with top-ten overall lap times, continuing a trend of strong secondary-class performances seen throughout the Endurance season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paradine Competition and Winward Racing showed early speed in the Bronze Cup ranks, while Boutsen VDS demonstrated strong form in the Gold class setup.<\/sup> Mechanics and race engineers now face a short turnaround to analyze telemetry data, tweak damper settings, and finalize gear ratios ahead of the afternoon track running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RESULTS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fanatec GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup action kicked off at the iconic N\u00fcrburgring GP-Strecke with the opening Free Practice session. Teams hit the track in Eifel to refine setups, manage high-density multi-class traffic, and measure their initial pace. Leading the timing sheets at the end of the initial hour-and-a-half run was ROWE Racing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[87],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gt-world-challenge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1940,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1937\/revisions\/1940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/giornalemotori.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}