Hungaroring - FP1: Chevrolet trio stays on top

The three Chevrolet Cruze cars of Yvan Muller, Rob Huff and Alain Menu retained the top positions in this morning’s free practice at Budapest’s Hungaroring.

Just like in yesterday’s test, the trio on RML drivers posted the best laps. This time Huff was fastest of his team-mates with the time of 1:57.296 that was clocked as the session was expiring. The current championship leader outpaced Muller’s provisional fastest lap of 1:57.577, while Menu (who had topped Friday’s test session) was classified third at 1:57.880.

Three Yokohama Trophy competitors filled the spots between fourth and sixth, with local hero Norbert Michelisz completing a lap in 1:57.923 at the wheel of his BMW car to rank ahead of Darryl O’Young’s 1:58.173 and Javier Villa’s 1:58.209.

Tiago Monteiro drove the fastest SEAT TDi car to clock the seventh fastest time (1:58.235) with Robert Dahlgren’s Volvo C30 in tenth (1:58.501).

The three SUNRED turbo cars continued suffering from technical issues to the new 1.6L engine, however all the drivers – Fredy Barth, Michel Nykjær and Pepe Oriola – managed to complete a decent number of laps and were placed from 13th to 15th.

A few competitors experienced thrilling moments, mainly at turns 4 and 12, while Urs Sonderegger find himself in uncomfortable positions twice: first when he spun at the exit of the last corner and then when he went off onto the grass at T5.