Photo: WTCC Media

Monteiro leads in shakedown session

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SUNRED Engineering driver set the pace in the opening shakedown session of the season at Curitiba, ahead of the Chevrolets of Alain Menu and Yvan Muller.

The session was cut short after fellow SUNRED driver Aleksei Dudukalo, in his first event in the WTCC, crashed his SEAT León TDI with 20 minutes to go in the 90 minute shakedown run.

Although Monteiro surprised by being top of the time sheets with a 1:24.360, the best possible lap made of Kristian Poulsen, Tom Coronel & Alain Menu’s best sectors would be a 1:23.691, seven-tenths of a second quicker than the diesel powered SEAT.

The new BMW 320 TC also dominated in all of the speed traps, with Coronel and Poulsen clocked at the top in each sector.

Marchy Lee, making his WTCC debut with a BMW 320 TC was the slowest runner 7.8s down, but only managed to set four laps in the shortened 70 minute session.

Gabriele Tarquini and Javier Villa sat out the test session as their cars were undergoing adjustments, but will both get the opportunity to run today in the 30 minute test session scheduled at 14:00 local time.

Aleksei Dudukalo’s Lukoil-SUNRED SEAT sustained heavy damage in the shakedown session and is unlikely to take part in this afternoon’s test.

Franz Engstler was the top independent driver in fourth and also the top BMW, whilst the top Jay-Ten Trophy driver was Fredy Barth in eighth.