Ponce de León fastest at Buenos Aires test

Ford-YPF’s Gabriele Ponce De León was fastest on Tuesday’s test, as WTCC driver Gabriele Tarquini sampled the Honda Civic he’ll race at the 200km endurance event in November for the first time.

The test is one of a limited number of test days allowed all season, and drivers can run use new sets of tyres, or if they prefer to save them run on old tyres for the session.

With many teams bringing their endurance pairings to the test, there were a total of 51 drivers at the session, meaning some drivers got to do more running than others.

Tarquini ran on used tyres in the Honda Civic prepared by Equipo Petrobras, and was able to set 12 laps which saw him 34th, 3.2s down on the fastest lap set by Ponce de Leon.

The fastest driver on used tyres was Emiliano Spataro in the Fiat Linea, ninth overall and 0.7s down on the Ford driver.

Matías Rossi in the Lo-Jack Renault Mégane was second fastest, with the second Ford of Norberto Fontana third and the TTA Toyota Corolla fourth.

Championship leader Leonel Pernía was eighth fastest in the Civic.