Motegi, FP2: Girolami leaves it late to top WTCC times (again!)

Néstor Girolami continued his impressive start to life as a factory Polestar Cyan Racing driver in the FIA World Touring Car Championship with the fastest time in Free Practice 2 at WTCC JVCKENWOOD Race of Japan.

There were 30 seconds left on the TAG Heuer timing screen when the back-to-back Súper TC2000 champion from Argentina clocked a 1m57.646s best to demote Tom Chilton as the 30-minute session’s quickest driver.

“We improved a lot in this session,” said the 27-year-old Girolami. “I felt the car great in every corner but we need to focus on qualifying now. The pace was very good and I felt very good pace each lap. If we can do that [again] it will make a very good qualifying.”

Chilton, who was the fastest WTCC Trophy contender, ended up 0.085s slower than Volvo racer Girolami with Mehdi Bennani, in a second Sébastien Loeb Racing Citroën, third followed by John Filippi (Campos Racing Chevrolet) and reigning WTCC champion José María López, who edged factory Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller by a mere 0.012s. Muller had been quickest of all for several minutes earlier in the session.

Tiago Monteiro was the fastest works Honda driver in seventh with Nicky Catsburg eighth for LADA, Thed Björk ninth in the second Polestar Volvo and Tom Coronel rounding out the top 10.

Elsewhere, Hugo Valente, who became a father to a baby girl overnight, was P11 for LADA with team-mate Gabriele Tarquini P12 and Rob P13 for Honda. Huff’s Civic-driving team-mates Norbert Michelisz and Ryo Michigami were next up.

Qualifying is up next from 15h00 local time.