Photo: TCR Media

Pepe Oriola tops red-flagged second practice session in Austria

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Craft-Bamboo Lukoil’s Pepe Oriola finished on top in the second and final practice session at the Salzburgring, finishing ahead of Engstler Motorsport’s Mikhail Grachev, with championship rival Stefano Comini third in a session which was red flagged for almost 15 minutes.

Many drivers opted not to work on setting fast laps during the first part of the session, and a technical issue also preventing Stefano Comini from joining the session at the outset in his Target Competition SEAT León Racer.

The first competitive time came from WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli, who set a time of 1:28.771, which the Italian later improved to 1:28.098, which would be his best time of the session. Morbidelli’s time was set just as Pepe Oriola took over at the top in his SEAT León, the first driver under 1:28 in the session with a time of 1:27.892.

The session was then red flagged after 15 minutes when Fernando Monje stopped his Campos Racing Opel Astra on the straight near the exit of the pit lane with damaged front-left suspension following a puncture. It took almost 15 minutes to recover the car before the session was able to be resumed after a failed first attempt to tow the car out of the way.

When the session resumed, Stefano Comini soon took over at the top of the time sheets in his Target SEAT with a time of 1:27.441, before Oriola improved again and came close to breaking he 1:27 barrier with a time of 1:27.097.

Mikhail Grachev found time in the Liqui Moly Team Engstler SEAT to go second fastest, just under two-tenths of a second behind Oriola, while there were very few improvements in the final ten minutes, leaving Comini third, the second Engstler SEAT of Lorenzo Veglia fourth, and Sergey Afanasyev fifth in the #77 Craft-Bamboo SEAT.

With Opel’s Monje not setting a competitive time before stopping his car, and with Morbidelli the fastest of the Hondas in tenth, a thousandth over a second off the pace of Oriola, SEATs occupied the top nine positions in the practice session.

Next up is qualifying which gets underway at 15:00 CET.