Photo: TCR Media

Jordi Gené leads Craft-Bamboo Lukoil 1-2-3

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Jordi Gené set the pace in the first Free Practice session of the day in Valencia, Spain. The local hero came home ahead of Craft-Bamboo Lukoil team-mates Pepe Oriola and Sergey Afanasyev, making it a SEAT 1-2-3.

The Spaniard set the pace early in the session, just like his team-mate Oriola, who was a blink of an eye slower than Gené. During the session Target Competition drivers Stefano Comini and Andrea Belicchi occupied the top positions behind the leaders, but were over half a second off their pace.

In the middle of the session WestCoast Racing driver Gianni Morbidelli brought his Honda Civic TCR up to third, only to be demoted to fourth by Afanasyev.

Comini finished in fifth ahead of Target Competition team-mates Michel Nykjaer and Andrea Belicchi, the Dane quickly making up for the lack of running in yesterday’s test session.

Series newcomers Bas Schouten and David Cebriàn ended up eighth and ninth respectively in their SEAT León Racers, with Franz Engstler closing the top ten in his Liqui Moly Team Engstler Audi TT.

Despite finishing 16th and 17th, the Opels had time to put together a good amount of laps, and emerged to be not far from the direct competitors.

Free Practice 2 is scheduled for 12:30 local time.