Ombra Racing’s new signing Lirim Zendeli had an impressive testing day at the Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari circuit in Imola on Thursday, as the German-Albanian youngster continued his process of familiarization with the Porsche 911 GT3 of the Bergamo-based squad.

The MIM-contracted driver, who will have a busy schedule this year racing in Porsche’s one-make cup series across Europe and in Italy, was on track with the rest of the 30-strong domestic field, and right at the end of seven hours of testing, he dropped a lap of 1m42.965s to finish third in the timesheets.

“If we take off the top guy, it looks great!” said Lirim. “I struggled a bit at the beginning of the day because I haven’t been here for a long time and coming back was really difficult. If you don’t put the car in the right spot, you might start working in the wrong direction and everything gets a bit more complicated. But the good thing about today is that I learned to understand the tyre a bit more. We put on three sets and the first set I didn’t feel it at all, the second set we had red flags and finally, with the third set, I could finally feel the peak of the tyres. I still have a lot to learn, it was not a perfect lap, but I think it’s a good lap to start with. The car felt really good, it’s more like me that has to improve more, because I think we have a good pace so far.”

Lirim’s next run-out in the Porsche will be on 30 April/1 May at Silverstone (UK) at the official Mobil 1 Supercup pre-season test.