BRC Hyundai Squadra Corse’s Néstor Girolami and Lynk & Co Cyan Racing’s Thed Björk topped one practice session apiece in the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at Zhuzhou.
The time set by the Swedish driver in the second session was one tenth faster than Girolami’s in FP1.
FP1 – On his first timed lap, Girolami clocked a 1:44.430 that was not to be beaten in the remaining 25 minutes. Halfway-through the session, Will Brown (1:45.050), Aurélien Comte (1:45.123) and Thed Björk (1:45.177) lapped close to the 1:45 barrier, but the only other drivers who were able to break it were Santiago Urrutia and the points leader Yann Ehrlacher who advanced to second and third in the late stages with laps of 1:44.915 and 1:44.983 respectively.
They demoted Ma Qing Hua, Brown and Comte to fourth, fifth and sixth, while Björk, Ignacio Montenegro, Norbert Michelisz and Lo Sze Ho rounded off the top ten.
Victor Chan Chun Leung topped the TCR Asia in 13th place overall, beating Jiang Nan by 12 thousandths of a second.
FP2 – Lo Sze Ho was on top of the timesheet for most of the session as he posted four consecutive fastest laps, improving from 1:45.617 to 1:45.140. After 13 minutes, the red flag was waved after Chan’s Honda spun off and crashed into the barriers. When the session resumed most of the drivers improved and just before the end, Björk moved on top with a lap of 1:44.343 and he was followed by Mikel Azcona (1:44.570), Comte (1:44.738), Ma (1:44.766) and Brown (1:44.900), while Lo slipped to eight behind Ehrlacher and Girolami.
Diego Moran was 13th overall and fastest in TCR Asia, with Benny Santoso 15th.
Action will resume tomorrow morning at 10:00 local time (03:00am CET) with the Qualifying session.
Picture: WSC/Jun Qian Motorsport
