Tarquini fastest man in first test

The World Touring Car Championship season has started with the first test session at the Curitiba track in Brazil. Gabriele Tarquini was the fastest man on track, setting a time of 1:25.497 round the 3.695 kilometer long track. By setting this time in the final minutes of the session, the italian just outpaced the BMW driver pair Augusto Farfus and Jörg Müller.

The Italian set the best lap with a slight advantage over Augusto Farfus Jr and Jörg Müller, who were respectively only 0.057s and 0.058s shy of the Seat Sport driver.

The top eight of the final time table was dominated by the SEAT’s and BMW’s. After a difficult session, also due to traffic issues, Priaulx clocked the 4th fastest laptime, just ahead of the only other World Champion on the track, Yvan Muller, who couldn’t maximize a good session in which the Frenchman was constantly in the Top five.

Muller was the leading car of a train of four SEAT’s. He was ahead of Rickard Rydell, Tiago Monteiro and Jordi Gené respectively.

The first Chevrolet Cruze, which makes his debute on the Curitiba track, was in nineth place. Nicola Larini was just a tenth quicker than his team mate Alain Menu, who was in tenth.

Robert Huff, who finished third in the championship last season, was down in 12th, just behind the fastest privateer Felíx Porteiro (ProTeam). Sergio Hernández, who swapped places with Porteiro over the winter, set the 14th fastest time.

The fastest Lada works entry was down in 17th, driven by Jaap van Lagen. He was over two seconds slower than Gabriele Tarquini at the front, but was still much faster than his Lada Sport teamates.

Marin Çolak was 2.3s behind the lead, but came out as the best placed Seat Independent driver. This is partly due to Coronel’s absence, as his engine stopped during the first lap of the sesion, while Poulsen didn’t even make it to the pit lane due to a fuel pump failure.