Monza - FP2: Pepe Oriola is an impressive fourth

After Gabriele Tarquini had delighted the SEAT engineers with the second-fastest time in this morning’s first Free Practice session, it was the turn of Yokohama Trophy competitor Pepe Oriola to confirm the potential of the new 1.6 litre turbocharged petrol engine in the second session. Oriola’s SEAT León was fourth fastest in the session, beating the reigning World Champion Yvan Muller by nearly one-hundredth of a second.

For the second time today, Tarquini had to settle for second-best behind a Chevrolet driver. After Robert Huff had set the quickest time in the first Free Practice session, this time it was Alain Menu’s turn to beat the Italian driver; Menu’s time of 1:58.645 was over half a second faster than Tarquini (1:59.207), while Huff could only manage to set the third quickest time (1:59.212).

Oriola (1:59.303) was fourth, with Muller (1:59.311) fifth. Sixth fastest was another of the turbo-engined SEAT León cars - that of Aleksei Dudukalo (1:59.675) - while WTCC newcomer Alex MacDowall in a Chevrolet Cruze was seventh (1:59.769). The top ten was completed by the three BMW 320 cars of Alberto Cerqui (1:59.789), Norbert Michelisz (1:59.850) and Tom Coronel (1:59.882).

The SUNRED Engineering car of Andrea Barlesi fared less well. The León went off into the gravel trap at Ascari on only its third lap and could not rejoin.
The new-style Qualifying session begins at 14.30 local time.