Photo: WTCC media

Practise 1: Priaulx fastest

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Andy Priaulx put in a strong performance to set the fastest lap towards the end of the session.

The BMW Team UK driver ousted a couple of SEAT Sport men – Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro – who had led the timesheet for most of the 30-minute practice in which the four fastest were covered by only two hundredths of a second, while the top-20 were all within eight tenths.

In the first five minutes of the session BMW men set the pace: Priaulx clocked the first significant time of 1:37.194, but a few seconds later home boy Jörg Müller drove faster in 1:37.115 with his team-mate Augusto Farfus second fastest in 1:37.186.

However, Monteiro was the first driver to break the 1:37. barrier, setting a provisional fastest time of 1:36.921 which lasted ten minutes until Tarquini managed to improve to 1:36.903.

Then, with only three minutes to go, Priaulx covered one lap in 1:36.895; he was on the way to improve again until he committed a slight mistake in T13.

Jörg Müller also went under the 1:37. mark (1:36.923) to secure fourth place before spinning on his last lap.

Alain Menu and James Thompson placed Chevrolet and Alfa Romeo in the top seven, setting the fifth and seventh fastest times respectively.

Sergio Hernández emerged as the best of the Independents, placing tenth overall and beating fellow competitors Pierre-Yves Corthals and Luca Rangoni by a handful of thousandths.