Beijing, FP2: Ma Qing Hua beats Huff at nightfall

The second free practice kicked off at dusk and once again the drivers were welcomed by a slippery track.

As the session progressed the tarmac dried up,but daylight faded very quickly until the night fell and the race director was forced to stop proceedings with two minutes left on the clock.

In the early stages James Thompson spun and rejoined, while Tom Coronel went off at T14 and remained stranded onto the gravel trap; the session was disrupted by the red flag after eight minutes and the Dutchman was sidelined for the rest of the time having received external aid.
Just like in the first practice, lap times were improved significantly. When the session resumed after the red flag, Yvan Muller was timed at 1:07.002. However the Frenchman was soon ousted by his fellow countryman Sébastien Loeb who piled up a series of consecutive fastest laps: 1:06.606, 1:06.424 and 1:06.320.

The former rally susperstar was eventually beaten by his Chinese team-mate Ma Qing Hua who stopped the clock at 1:06.167 and immediately improved to 1:06.127.

A few other drivers were able to close the gap: Gianni Morbidelli (1:06.231) moved up to second but he was soon demoted to third by Rob Huff’s 1:06.208.

As the end of the session approached, Monteiro (1:05.978) and Thompson (1:06.204) were able to go faster and were momentarily placed in first and third position respectively. However, their times were disallowed as they had been set just after the red flag was waved to stop the session, which left Ma ahead of the rest of the field.

Hugo Valente was forced to miss most of the session because of an electronic bug that affected the sensor of the throttle. Franz Engstler topped the TC2T class with a lap of 1:09.488.

WTCC drivers will hit the track again tomorrow at 8.30 for an unprecedented Sunday morning qualifying session.