Salzburgring - FP2: Di Sabatino chases factory cars

In a session that was twice interrupted by red flags, it was once again Chevrolet that dominated proceedings.

The fastest time (1:27.304) was set right at the end of the session by Alain Menu, with Yvan Muller second fastest (1:27.374) and Robert Huff third (1:27.377).

The fourth fastest time was set by the bamboo-engineering Cruze of Pasquale Di Sabatino (1:27.995) with Gabriele Tarquini’s SEAT Leon the best of the non-Chevrolet cars in fifth place (1:28.024).

It was Huff who set the early pace and he was leading Menu and Muller when the red flags came out for the first time after around seven minutes of the session. The stoppage was caused when Darryl O’Young’s SEAT hit the tyre pile on the inside of Turn 1, forcing the León to stop in the middle the chicane.

It was then Muller’s turn to lead the Chevrolet pack until there were around eleven minutes remaining, when the two BMWs of Gábor Wéber (Turn 13) and then Mehdi Bennani (Turn 9) went off the track and so caused the second appearance of the red flags. The final third of the half-hour session then saw Menu make a last-minute bid to set the fastest time, helped by a clear track for all but the final few corners.

In the Yokohama Trophy, Di Sabatino was only around a tenth of a second or so quicker than his teammate Alex MacDowall (1:28.103), while Pepe Oriola (1:28.474) was third fastest in the category.

Once again, the tight chicane at Turns 1 and 2 caught out several of the drivers, with all of the Chevrolets taking either to the escape road or, in Huff’s case, the gravel at one point. Gabriele Tarquini had to use the escape road on no fewer than three occasions, causing the Race Director to issue a warning about respecting the track limits at the chicane.

The two-part Qualifying session begins at 15:45 CET.