Sonoma, Testing: First blood to Honda in California

Last year, the WTCC’s first visit to the Sonoma Raceway in Northern California saw Chevrolet score a pair of victories, but it was a Honda Civic that posted the fastest time in the first session of the 2013 meeting.

In Friday’s Testing session, the Castrol Honda Team’s car of Tiago Monteiro set a best lap time of 1:46.300, ahead of the SEAT León of the reigning World Champion Rob Huff (1:46.432) and Pepe Oriola in the quickest Chevrolet Cruze (1:46.691).

The thirty-minute session saw all three of the Honda cars top the timesheets, with Monteiro’s teammate Gabriele Tarquini the early pacesetter. Norbert Michelisz in the Zengö Motorsport Civic set the fastest time with around eight minutes of the session remaining before Tarquini again, then Tom Chilton in the RML Chevrolet and finally Monterio set the best lap.

Yvan Muller, current point leder in the championship, posted the seventh fastest lap (1:46.936), just behind Tom Coronel who emerged as the best of the BMW drivers (1:46.900).

Proteam Racing’s Mehdi Bennani topped the Yokohama Trophy field with a lap of 1:47.269 that was worth the ninth position overall.

Incidents included the LADA Granta of James Thompson limping back to the pits with a loose front wheel caused by a suspension problem, while Charles Ng spun at Turn 3 and both Darryl O’Young and Fernando Monje went out-and-back at T6.

Saturday will see the WTCC field take to the track for two thirty-minute Free Practice sessions, before the two-stage Qualifying begins at 14.00 local time (23.00 CET).