Shanghai, Testing: López changes set up and posts fast lap

A typical Cinese grey sky welcomed the drivers for today’s test session in which the fastest lap was timed by José María López (1:50.396).

The current championship leader did not show up on top of the time sheet for most of the 30 minutes, as he was focusing on set-up changes. Eventually, in the dying moment of the session he took the track again and posted the fastest lap under the chequered flag. Lopez’s effort was manily due to a monster split time in the first sector (42.662) that actually made the difference.
Yvan Muller was classified second with a lap of 1:50.595 after leading for most of the session, while Norbert Michelisz (1:50.750) placed the best of the Honda cars in third position ahead of the third Citroën of Sébastien Loeb (1:50.901). Nobody else was able to go under the 1:51. mark.

Gabriele Tarquini (1:51.097) set the fifth fastest lap, followed by local hero Ma Qing Hua (1:51.131), Mehdi Bennani (1:51.354), Tiago Monteiro (1:51.544) and the best Chevrolet of Hugo Valente (1:51.978). James Thompson was the fastest of the LADA men in 11th position (1:52.514); Franz Engstler topped the TC2T class(1:57.904) from John Filippi.

There was only one small incident on the track, when Mikhail Kozlovsky’s LADA spun at T4 and stalled for a few moments before rejoining. Dušan Borković, whose Chevrolet Cruze was rebuilt after last week’s crash in Beijing, could not post any lap time and remained in the pits due to a steering pump problem.

The WTCC field will run again tomorrow in two free practices at 8.10 and 10.40, before the qualifying session at 13.30.