Farfus sets the pace in the opening practice session

The final European event of the FIA WTCC 2010 season got underway today in Valencia, Spain with BMW Team RBM’s Augusto Farfus topping the timesheets with a time of 1:45.509.

The Brazilian driver set the quickest time with a few minutes remaining in the 30-minute session after home favourite, Jordi Gené had briefly posted the quickest time early on.

Despite only heading out on track half way through practice, Chevrolet’s Alain Menu (1:45.542) finished second quickest just 0.03s adrift. Farfus’ teammate, Andy Priaulx (1:45.542) was third ahead of Rob Huff (1:45.663). Defending champion Gabriele Tarquini (1:45.822) was fifth just ahead of SR-Sport teammate Tiago Monteiro (1:45.871) and Chevrolet’s Yvan Muller (1:46.042), who still leads the standings. Norbert Michelisz (1:46.106) was eighth and top rookie ahead of Spain’s Gené (1:46.138). Tom Coronel (1:46.179) rounded out the top ten who were covered by six tenths only.

Season newcomer, Spaniard Marc Carol impressed on his first outing for SEAT Customers Technology, finishing 12th overall and best of the Independents.

First practice finished with no major incident aside from a damp track – because of night showers – making for a few sideways moments throughout the field.