Photo: WTCC Media

Alain Menu tops first test session in Brazil

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Alain Menu was the fastest driver in the Friday test session at the Autódromo Internacional de Curitiba, displacing Chevrolet team-mate Rob Huff in the last few minutes of the session.

The session was delayed by 50 minutes as a temporary chicane is being used to curtail the speed of the supporting Auto GP championship at Turn 8, which needed to be removed for the WTCC session.

Rob Huff’s name was at the top of the table for almost the entire session, with the 32-year-old Briton setting the fastest time of all of the first runs and improving later in the session, ending up with a best time of 1:22.916.

However, with just under two minutes to go, Swiss team-mate Alain Menu went quickest of all, outpacing Huff by just under two-tenths of a second to end up on top, with Championship leader Yvan Muller in third, exactly 0.2 of a second down on Menu to seal a Chevrolet 1-2-3.

Michel Nykjaer was quick from the start on his WTCC return in the Bamboo Engineering Chevrolet Cruze, and was running just behind the works drivers for the bulk of the session. Late improvements from Gabriele Tarquini in the Lukoil Racing SEAT dropped Nykjaer to fifth, and then Alex MacDowall went quicker still after the chequered flag had waved to move ahead of his new team-mate.

As a result, all five Chevrolets were in the top six positions, with Gabriele Tarquini the interloper in fourth.

Tom Coronel ended up the fastest of the BMW drivers in his ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC in seventh, just ahead of Stefano D’Aste’s Wiechers-Sport BMW.

Tiago Monteiro was the quickest of the SUNRED trio in ninth place, just over two seconds behind Menu’s Chevrolet, with Monteiro’s SUNRED team-mates Pepe Oriola and Fernando Monje bringing up the rear of the field in the last two positions.

Tom Chilton put Arena Motorsport’s Ford Focus in the top ten with a time of 1:25.105 on his, and the team’s first visit to Curitiba, with team-mate James Nash down in 17th position.

The next session is Free Practice 1, which gets underway at 08:20 BRT (13:20 CET).