Spa, Tests: López leads Muller in first test at Spa

WTCC drivers had their first taste of the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in a typical Ardennes weather: a cloudy sky with some drizzle that made some parts of the track a bit slippery.

This made all competitors very cautious in order to avoid damaging their cars even before the actual action starts.

Lap times improved consistently and significantly. In the second half of the session current championship leader José María López posted a provisional fastest lap of 2:27.089 that was soon improved by Hugo Valente’s 2:26.242. However Yvan Muller soon restored Citroën’s supremacy with a lap of 2:25.292.

Eventually López regained the lead for good, stopping the clock at 2:24.574.

The Castrol Honda Racing cars of Tiago Monteiro and Gabriele Tarquini were the closest to the Citroën trio of López, Muller and Sébastien Loeb. Monteiro managed to split them by posting the third fastest lap (2:25.583), while Tarquini (2:25.940) was classified fifth behind Loeb (2:25.794).

Campos Racing’s Dušan Borković was the fastest of the drivers in the Chevrolet RML cars (2:25.954) lying in sixth, only 14 thousandths behind Tarquini. His team-mate Valente slipped down to seventh ahead of Ma Qing Hua (2:27.346), the winner of Moscow’s second race in the fourth Citroën.

Norbert Michelisz (2:27.625) and Gianni Morbidelli (2:27.656) rounded off the top ten.
James Thompson was the fastest of the LADA drivers, eleventh with a lap of 2:29.045, while Franz Engstler topped the TC2T class (2:35.511).