With a record 78 competitors accelerating the most produced competition cars on the planet, the Porsche Cup C6 Bank promoted its free practice sessions at Interlagos with the competitiveness peculiar to the largest single-brand and single-management event in Latin America. In the Carrera Cup, no less than 14 of the 37 competitors were separated by less than 1s.

The lead fell to Marçal Muller, overall champion of 2025, followed by Lucas Salles. Antonella Bassani, Alceu Feldmann and Matheus Comparato completed the top5. Among the competitors in the Sport class, the best of the day was Feldmann.

For Carrera Rookie, the fastest was José Moura Neto aboard the Porsche #45. He is one of the competitors who moved up from the Challenge to the Carrera this year and closed the first day of official activities on the calendar with a very respectable ninth place overall.

The session was also the first official practice session contested by Pipo Massa. Felipe Massa's son is the youngest driver on the grid, at 16 years old, and makes his debut with race cars. He was 12th overall and second in Rookie, just second behind the benchmark set by Muller.

In the Challenge, the fastest was Caio Castro with the #22 Porsche. He was more than half a second ahead of Daniel Neumann, the second fastest of the afternoon with the 911 Cup cars of the 991.2 generation. Marco Mascari, Cecilia Rabelo and Sadak Leite completed the top5. Mascari was the fastest among the Sport competitors while the fastest Rookie of the session was Marcelo Bentivoglio with the #777.

The last session on Friday was in the Trophy class, which was led by Guilherme Figueiredo. The access division had rookie Manu Herrmann as the leader of the Rookie class.

Like the pre-season tests, when the cars all prepared and equalized by the same team covered almost 7,000 km with practically no mechanical problems (the only occurrence was a shock absorber problem in a car), this Friday's round did not register any relevant mechanical problems.

The weekend schedule determines the opening of the pit box for the Carrera qualifying this Saturday. Then the Challenge qualifier takes place. The sessions are separated into Q1 and Q2, with only the ten fastest from the previous session participating in the second phase of the session.

The afternoon schedule includes race 1 of the Carrera followed by the Challenge. At the end of the day, the Trophy qualifier takes place.

The races are shown live by Band, Bandsports and the official digital channels of the Porsche Cup C6 Bank.

What they said:

"I try to focus on our work. Free practice is not valid for points, but it is valid to know that everything we have evolved in the car is working. The team is very competitive even with the wet track, especially when braking at turn 1, which made the sector more difficult. But we managed to do well anyway and we feel ready to fight for poles and victories this weekend"
Marçal Muller

"It's a spirit, no doubt. Because of the conditions, the uncertainty, the amount of training we had. In the morning activity I didn't even enter, the track was wet and dried, we couldn't use rain tires or slicks, so we decided to save the equipment from a possible crash.
I'm happy, of course training is training and game is game and the grid has many drivers who were not in last year's category. But it's a good start and gives encouragement for tomorrow."
Caio Castro

"We have some things to tweak on the car to improve further. Even so I managed to fit a good lap, two good sectors. I'm very confident in this new season, I want to go up and I'm sure tomorrow will be a very good day for us."
Antonella Bassani

"It was good practice, we had a great pace, I was hindered on my best lap, but I think the car is great. We put on a new tyre to test the condition of qualifying and I'm confident we'll perform well tomorrow."
Matheus Comparatto

"In the summer I only rode in the simulator. Yesterday, we had a very unbalanced car and we managed to get it right for the rain this morning. Apparently, now we balance the car for the dry track. I pressed Boost on second and third was my best lap, so we had those two tenths left to lead the day. I'm very happy with the performance of the car and team."
Alceu Feldmann

"Well, first of all it's a very different car from what I'm used to. Easier in some aspects and much more complicated in others. To turn quickly and maintain pace is easy, but reaching the limit becomes very challenging. He is more 'on/off' than the other, which you can fight more. Here, if you lose a little, it is difficult to recover because of the extra power and you have to be more careful when accelerating.
It was a good training. We got the P1 of Rookie even with Pipo (Massa) right behind. Nothing is guaranteed, but expectations are high"
José Moura Neto