Valencia, FP2: Tarquini is fastest

Temperatures were higher and, consequently, lap times were slower at Valencia for the second practice.

This did not affect Gabriele Tarquini, who managed to outpace the rest of the field with a lap of 1:43.834 posted three minutes before the end of the session.

The Italian’s SEAT León beat the previous fastest lap of 1:43.843 set by Rob Huff’s Chevrolet Cruze by a mere nine thousandths of a second, while Yvan Muller was classified third (1:43.931) less than one further tenth behind.

Gaps were considerably smaller, and Tom Coronel in a ROAL Motorsport BMW posted the fourth fastest lap of 1:43.934, three thousandths off Muller and four hundredths ahead of Alain Menu.

Aleksei Dudukalo (1:44.030), Norbert Michelisz (1:44.037) and Darryl O’Young (1:44.239) filled the positions from sixth to eighth, topping the Yokohama Trophy. While Tiago Monteiro (1:44.453) and Pepe Oriola (1:44.491) completed the top-ten.

Ford team-mates James Nash and Tom Chilton repeated their Practice 1 result (15th and 16th), but managed to significantly reduce their gap from the top, from two seconds to 1.1.

The session had a premature end for a couple of drivers who beached their cars and received mechanical help to get out of the gravel: Charles Ng at Turn 5 and Mehdi Bennani at Turn 11.