Norbert Michelisz was quickest of all in the first 30-minute practice session at Vila Real’s street circuit, leading the way in his BRC Hyundai by less than a tenth of a second ahead of championship leader Santiago Urrutia’s Geely.
Michelisz laid down his best time less than ten minutes into the session with a time of 2:00.777, while opting to explore the returning joker lap path on his early runs to acclimatise and assess the time difference for the alternative path at Turn 24.
The two Hyundai cars were on top through most of the session, before the Geely Cyan Racing drivers pushed forward later, with Yann Ehrlacher first jumping up to second, before Urrutia found even more pace to go second fastest, just 0.027 seconds slower than Michelisz, with Azcona dropped down to fourth.
The other Geely drivers: Ma Qing Hua and Thed Björk ended fifth and sixth, with Björk missing much of the session as the team worked on a technical issue. Aurélien Comte was the fastest of the three SP Compétition CUPRA cars, and seventh overall, just ahead of new teammate Viktor Andersson, who was also the fastest of the ETS Guest Star Trophy drivers.
Jenson Brickley, making his street circuit debut this weekend was ninth, with Jimmy Clairet completing the top ten.
The second practice session is scheduled to get underway at 12:30 local time (13:30 CEST).
Picture: WSC/Fastclick-AvensImages
