José María López leads the way in final Portugal practice session

Citroën’s José María López was fastest of all in the second and final practice session at Vila Real, breaking his own qualifying record from last year with a time of 1:56.365, leading the two Hondas of Norbert Michelisz and Tiago Monteiro.

The championship leader showed more pace in this session than he’d shown all weekend so far, despite stating he was suffering with understeer, setting his best time half way through in a session which was less dramatic than the first which had taken place two hours earlier.

Michelisz’s best lap was three-tenths of a second behind López, with Monteiro exactly half a second behind López.

Yvan Muller ended up fourth for Citroën despite missing the majority of the session after damaging the left-rear suspension on his C-Elysée WTCC early on.

The Frenchman managed to get one lap in at the end of the session to move up to fourth ahead of FP1 pace-setter Rob Huff, who was then also outpaced by the Polestar Volvo of Thed Björk, with the Swede also setting the fastest second sector in his S60.

Tom Coronel was the fastest of both the independent and the Chevrolet drivers, setting the seventh quickest time in his ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet, whose mechanical issue from FP1 transpired to be the removal of a wing mirror.

Nicky Catsburg was the fastest of the Lada contingent in eight, with Mehdi Bennani ninth fastest for Sébastien Loeb Racing with Münnich Motorsport’s James Thompson completing the top ten.

Gabriele Tarquini completed just an out-in lap in his Lada Vesta due to an unidentified technical issue, while Zengo Motorsport’s Daniel Nagy was forced to skip the session due to ongoing issues with his new Honda engine installation, which means the 18-year-old Hungarian heads into qualifying not even having completed a full lap at speed around the Vila Real circuit.

Qualifying takes place at 14:00 local time (WEST).