Macau, FP2: Oriola faster the Muller

Pepe Oriola and Yvan Muller swapped positions in the second Free Practice, as the young Spaniard was able to clock a lap of 2:31.027 that beat Muller’s 2:31.256.

They had finished the previous session in reverse order. This time it was Muller who led for most of the time and was then beaten by Oriola in the final stages.

Tiago Monteiro was third fastest (2:31.930), with the Münnich Motorsport’s pair of Marc Basseng (2:32.030) and Rob Huff (2:32.802) in fourth and fifth.

Alex MacDowall topped the Yokohama Trophy, ranking seventh overall, between Gabriele Tarquini and Norbert Michelisz. James Nash and Tom Coronel completed the top ten.
The fastest in the Asia Trophy was Henry Ho (20th) followed by Filipe de Souza (22nd) and Joe Rosa-Merszei (23rd).

Both James Thompson and Ng Kin Veng missed the session, the former due to a steering failure, the latter for the consequences of his crash in Practice 1.

The session was red-flagged twice. The first time after only five minutes, when Tom Chilton crashed at high speed in the Solitude Esses, his Chevrolet bouncing back and forth between the barriers. As the action resumed, Charles Ng hits the wall at the Reservoir bend and limped back to the pits, his car heavily damaged; seconds later Fredy Barth spun at the Mandarin bend but was able to avoid the walls. Later on Franz Engstler hit the barrier at the Lisboa bend, and then the red flags were waved again to remove debris from the track. Just before the end of the session Michael Soong returned to the pits after hitting the wall at the Melco hairpin.

The Qualifying session is scheduled to begin at 15.35 local time.