Gené fastest in second practice

In a closely fought practice, where the top 16 drivers were covered by less than a second, SR-Sports Jordi Gené emerged quickest despite the team having to fix a fuel pressure problem during the 30-minute session. His time of 1:40.046, posted right at the end, was just 0.034 seconds faster than teammate Tiago Monteiro (1:40.080).

The session came to an early conclusion after defending champion Gabriele Tarquini bounced across the kerbs of the Chicane, breaking the oil sump on his SEAT León TDI and leaving a trail of oil on the racing line. As Franz Engstler spun out into the gravel on the oil the red flags came out.

With a dry track, lap time were immediately below this morning’s benchmark with several drivers getting sideways and kicking up the dust as they pushed to find the limit. The Chevrolet Cruze cars of Yvan Muller (1:40.093) and Alain Menu (1:40.249) were third and fourth quickest respectively while Harry Vaulkhard continued the good weekend for bamboo-engineering in fifth. Vaulkard’s time of 1:40.255 in his Chevrolet Lacetti was just 0.006 adrift of Menu’s and made him top rookie and top Independent in second practice. His bamboo-engineering teammate Darryl O’Young (1:40.550) was ninth.

Andy Priaulx (1:40.395) ended fifth with teammate Augusto Farfus (1:40.592) down in 12th. Hungarian rookie Norbert Michelisz (1:40.519) was seventh and, despite stopping out on track, Tarquini’s fastest time of 1:40.535 was good enough for eighth. SUNRED Engineering’s Michel Nykjær (1:40.569) concluded the top ten.

Local drivers, Vincent Radermecker (1:441.010) and Pierre-Yves Corthals (1:40.783) finished 15th and 16th respectively.