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Paul Ricard, Tests: López tops WTCC testing in the damp

López headed Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller

By Franck Drui

1 April 2016 - 12:10

José María López has made the best possible start to his FIA World Touring Car Championship title defence by going fastest in testing for WTCC JVCKENWOOD Race of France this morning.

At a rain-hit Circuit Paul Ricard, López headed Citroën team-mate Yvan Muller with Norbert Michelisz the top Honda driver in third followed by leading WTCC Trophy contender Mehdi Bennani.

Nicky Catsburg was the fastest LADA Sport Rosneft runner in seventh with Fredrik Ekblom the quickest of the two Polestar Cyan Racing Volvo drivers.

This morning’s 30-minute test was the first running of 2016 when all WTCC manufacturers were on track at the same time. Next up for the WTCC drivers is Free Practice 1 from 08h45 local time on Saturday.

Pos.	Driver	Team	Car	Time
1	Jose Maria Lopez	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	1:44.077
2	Yvan Muller	Citroen Total WTCC	Citroen	1:44.553
3	Norbert Michelisz	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:44.725
4	Mehdi Bennani	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:44.826
5	Tom Chilton	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:44.849
6	Tom Coronel	ROAL Motorsport	Chevrolet	1:45.437
7	Nicky Catsburg	LADA Sport	Lada	1:45.774
8	Tiago Monteiro	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:45.856
9	Gabriele Tarquini	LADA Sport	Lada	1:45.874
10	Grégoire Demoustier	Sebastien Loeb Racing	Citroen	1:46.328
11	Hugo Valente	LADA Sport	Lada	1:47.306
12	Rob Huff	Honda Racing Team JAS	Honda	1:47.661
13	John Filippi	Campos Racing	Chevrolet	1:48.477
14	Fredrik Ekblom	Polestar Cyan	Volvo	1:49.567
15	Thed Bjork	Polestar Cyan	Volvo	1:50.022
16	Rene Munnich	Munnich Motorsport	Chevrolet	1:52.820
17	Ferenc Ficza	Zengo	Honda	-:—.---
18	Daniel Nagy	Zengo	Honda	-:—.---