Photo: Lada Sport Media

Gabriele Tarquini breaks the lap record in practice at resurfaced Hungaroring

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Lada Sport’s Gabriele Tarquini topped the time sheets in Saturday’s first free practice session at the Hungaroring, the only driver in the 1:47s, smashing Yvan Muller’s pole position record of 1:48.727 from last year.

The top position honours changed hands a number of times throughout the 30-minute session, but was never once held by a Citroën, who are much fancied following the compensation weight increases for Lada and Honda heading into this weekend.

Nicky Catsburg set the first benchmark in his Lada Vesta WTCC, before he was toppled from the head of the timing screen by ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel in his Chevrolet Cruze, before the Hondas and Ladas traded the fastest time throughout the mid-part of the session with Tiago Monteiro (Honda), Catsburg (Lada) and then Norbert Michelisz (Honda) moving to the fore.

Tarquini’s best lap came in the last ten minutes of the session, with the Italian lapping the 4.4km circuit with a time of 1:47.929, despite being one of five drivers to receive a black & white flag by the stewards for exceeding track limits during the session, as well as Honda drivers Rob Huff and Tiago Monteiro, Lada team-mate Catsburg and ROAL driver Tom Coronel.

A number of laps were also deleted after drivers were judged to have shortcut the circuit at Turn 4.

Tarquini ended up on top in his Vesta, carrying 50kg of compensation weight this weekend, ahead of the unballasted Volvo S60 of Fredrik Ekblom by just over a tenth of a second.

Home hero Norbert Michelisz was third fastest in his Honda Civic, just ahead of current points leader and team-mate Tiago Monteiro, with Lada’s Nicky Catsburg completing the top five.

The best placed Citroën was that of Yvan Muller in sixth, with reigning champion team-mate José María López ninth fastest.

Tom Coronel was the best-placed of the privateer drivers in eighth, also the quickest of the Chevrolets, while the Campos Racing-run Chevrolet of John Filippi had limited running in the session, stopping with an apparent engine issue after just four laps.

The final free practice session gets underway at 12:15 CET.