Esteban Guerrieri and Aurélien Comte led the first two free practice sessions of the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at the Autódromo Hermanos Rodríguez in Mexico City. Guerrieri and his GOAT Racing Honda Civic FL5 set the fastest time of the day – 1:34.655 – in the first session, while returning driver Comte topped the second session just at the end in his SP Compétition CUPRA Leon VZ with a lap of 1:34.812.
Practice 1 was briefly interrupted before anyone had set a timed lap when the Zesati Racing Audi RS 3 LMS of Bruno Zesati spun. Yann Ehrlacher went to the top of the time sheets with a time of 1:34.735, but he was quickly toppled by Guerrieri, who was eight hundredths of a second quicker.
Series newcomer Ignacio Montenegro showed good pace in the second GOAT Honda, setting a run of times at the end of the session which moved him up to third place.
The best-placed of the CUPRA cars was Comte, seventh fastest, while Julio Réjon, one of the guest Mexican drivers competing in the World Tour was the quickest of the local stars in P9 with his ProRally Mothers CUPRA Leon VZ.
In TCR Mexico, the fastest car was the Centur Silen Petrol Racing CUPRA of Juan Pablo Sierra in 15th position.
In the second session the Lynk & Co cars of Ehrlacher and Thed Björk were at the front through much of the session, until a pair of last-minute flyers from Comte and Santiago Urrutia put them first and second.
Montenegro again showed his potential setting a provisional fastest lap before he was sidelined by a transmission failure, however, his best time remained the fifth fastest.
The best-placed guest driver was Rodrigo Rejón, sixth in his ProRally Mothers CUPRA, while the leading TCR Mexico competitor was Gerardo Nieto in the RE Motorsport Audi.
The next session is qualifying which takes place at 09:30 local time (17:30 CEST) on Friday morning.
Picture: WSC/FPC
