Chevrolet’s Rob Huff was fastest in the morning warm-up ahead of title rival and team-mate Yvan Muller, with Colin Turkington completing a Chevrolet top three in the Team Aviva-Cofco car.
Huff was quick to set the benchmark for all to follow, with a time of 1:55.475 set at the beginning of the session in the Chevrolet Cruze 1.6T. Muller was just a tenth behind but Huff was able to find even more time and set a time of 1:55.364, which made sure he was fastest at the end of the session.
Colin Turkington was also close in the West Surrey Racing-run Aviva-Cofco backed Chevrolet, setting the third fastest time, whilst Norbert Michelisz was fourth quickest in the Zengõ Motorsport BMW with pole sitter Alain Menu fifth.
Overnight rain meant the track conditions changed slightly since Friday and Saturday.
“It’s quite clean,” said Huff to Eurosport. “There was a lot of pick-up on the back straight (yesterday) and the rain’s really washed that away.”
The fastest SEAT was that of Tom Boardman, who went seventh quickest in the Special Tuning Racing entry, whilst James Nash was the top Ford driver in 12th, with Tiago Monteiro 17th in the lone Honda Civic.
Eric Kwong continued to show the way in the ‘normally aspirated class’, setting the 23rd fastest time in his Look Fong Racing-run Chevrolet Cruze. The other normally aspirated Cruze, that of Kin Veng Ng which is being run by China Dragon Racing, did not take part in the session.
2012 ETCC champion Fernando Monje only set four laps, and no competitive times, suffering problems in his SUNRED Engineering SEAT León WTCC.
There were a few spins as well, all for BMW drivers, with Alberto Cerqui and Charles Ng having minor offs in the final sector early in the session, whilst Alex Liu beached his BMW 320si in the gravel in sector one five minutes from the end and was unable to continue.
Race one starts at 14:50 CST (07:50 CET).
