Argentina, FP2: Muller and Chilton swap places

For the third time this weekend, the two RML Chevrolet Cruze cars topped the timesheets here at the Termas de Río Hondo circuit.

But after Yvan Muller set the fastest time in Testing yesterday and Free Practice 1 this morning, it was the turn of his teammate Tom Chilton to post the quickest time of 1:49.034 in FP2. Muller was then second fastest (1:49.183) and Alex MacDowall (1:49.341) made it an all-Chevrolet top three.

Behind the trio, Tiago Monteiro (1:49.586) was the best of the Honda drivers in fourth place, ahead of Norbert Michelisz in the Zengö Motorsport Civic (1:49.694) and ‘Pechito’ López in the fastest BMW (1:49.947). The LADA Granta of James Thompson set the ninth fastest time (1:50.399) while the best of the SEAT León drivers was Fernando Monje who was fourteenth quickest (1:50.813).

After BMW drivers investigated the grip levels in Free Practice 1, it was the turn of the front-wheel drive cars to do the same in FP2. The Chevrolet of Michel Nykjær took to the grass at Turn 11 early in the session, while René Münnich ended up in the gravel a few minutes later, resulting in the red flags being deployed while the SEAT was recovered. Rob Huff spent much of the session in the pit lane while work was carried out to his car but, when he did emerge onto the track a suspected turbocharger failure forced the reigning World Champion to park up at Turn 8 with just over three minutes of the session remaining.

The two-stage Qualifying session is scheduled to start at 15.45 local time (20.45 CET)