Norbert Michelisz

Honda’s Tiago Monteiro jumped to the top of the time sheets just after the chequered flag in the Saturday morning free practice session at Circuit Paul Ricard, where the top spot changed hands many times throughout on a drying track.

For the majority of the session, the coveted P1 spot was disputed by all three of the factory Honda drivers, with Rob Huff, Tiago Monteiro and Norbert Michelisz all having their turn in front, shared briefly with Fredrik Ekblom’s Volvo S60 and Gabriele Tarquini in the Lada Vesta.

The times slowly improved during the 30 minutes, starting in the 1:45s and gradually coming down into the 1:42s. Tarquini was the first to break into the 1:42 barrier with five minutes to go, before José María López produced a time two-tenths quicker just before the chequered flag in his Citroën C-Elysée, and the reigning champion looked set to lead his second session of the weekend.

Honda’s Tiago Monteiro however had one more run to go, and the Portuguese driver set the best overall first sector in his upgraded Honda Civic, and went on to finish just over a tenth of a second faster than López.

Gregoire Demoustier also set a late improvement to go third fastest in the Sébastien Loeb Racing-run Citroën, and ended up as the best placed independent driver, with Gabriele Tarquini the fastest Lada in fifth and Fredrik Ekblom the top Volvo in tenth.

17 cars took part in the session, with Ferenc Ficza completing four laps with the Zengő Honda Civic, running with a spare engine on loan from the factory team for today only.

Tom Coronel set just an out and in-lap in his ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze and didn’t set a representative time.

The next session for the WTCC is Free Practice 2 at 11:45 CET.

Source: TouringCarTimes

Results of FP1