James Thompson tops Salzburgring warm up

James Thompson set the pace during the morning warm up for today’s World Touring Car Championship races at the Salzburgring. The Lada driver was faster just under a tenth of a second faster than RML’s Yvan Muller in the 15 minute session.

With everyone still waiting for the final grid after last night’s mass of penalties post qualifying, Lada are set to benefit from having not being involved, with Mikhail Kozlovskiy believed to be starting from the second row for the first race.

James Thompson, whose car stopped during the qualifying session, topped the time sheets in the warm up with a time of 1:26.914, with Yvan Muller just 0.043 behind in his Chevrolet and Münnich Motorsport’s Rob Huff third.

After a slew of punctures last year, the teams are expected to have been working on a conservative set-up for the race, but James Nash, who will start second and first in today’s two races, suffered a front-left puncture in the warm up, which will be a warning to the other teams.

Nash was able to nurse the bamboo-engineering Chevrolet Cruze back to the pits, whilst there were excursions for PB Racing’s Stefano D’Aste, who hit the barrier at Turn 10, and Lada’s Mikhail Kozlovskiy, who spun his car at Turn 5 but managed to miss the barrier.

The first race is scheduled for 12:50 CET.