It was a day of practice in mixed weather conditions for the Kumho FIA TCR World Tour at the Zhejiang Circuit that saw Norbert Michelisz posting the fastest lap in the first session on a dry tack and Ma Qing Hua responding with the best lap in the wet second session.
Practice 1 started under a threat of rain and was red-flagged after ten minutes to recover Li Jia Jun’s Audi from the gravel at T16.
When the session resumed, Mikel Azcona posted a fastest lap of 1:32.763 that was later improved by Thed Björk to 1:32.188. However, in the dying minutes Azcona with 1:32.172 and then Michelisz with 1:32.161 demoted Björk to third despite he also improved his previous time by five thousandths.
Santiago Urrutia, who stopped on track with a technical issue after the chequered flag, and Aurélien Comte followed in fourth and fifth ahead of the best Guest Driver, Bayern Yip Wai Hei.
Rain began to fall at the end of the first session and continued throughout the afternoon making the second Practice fully wet.
Urrutia set the first benchmark with a lap of 1.47.237, but soon Michelisz went faster to 1:47.207 with Björk and Yann Ehrlacher two tenths behind the pair and separated by just four thousandths. The red flag was waved midway through the session when the Honda of William Cheung Wang Chi went off at T13. The clock was not stopped and so the session resumed with nine minutes left; the rain had eased and lap times went down. Urrutia was the first to break the 1:47 wall with a 1:46.471, while Michelisz 1:46.677 and Comte 1:46.942 advanced to second and third. Just before the end of the session, Azcona moved up to second with 1:46.483, and then on top with a lap of 1:46.483, but it was Ma who had the last word clocking a 1:46.049.
Ehrlacher, Björk, Lo Sze Ho the best Guest Driver, Jean-Karl Vernay and Diego Moran the leader of TCR Asia rounded-up the top ten.
Action will resume tomorrow with the Qualifying at 10:10 local time (04:10 CEST), streamed live on TCRTV.
Picture: WSC/Paddocker
