Photo: WTCC Media

Yvan Muller fastest at Monza test day

By

Reigning World Champion Yvan Muller was fastest on the Monza test day ahead of this weekend’s third round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship. The Chevrolet driver was fastest from the BMWs of Kristian Poulsen & Tom Coronel.

Muller saved his quick run until the 5th hour of testing, breaking under the two minute barrier but was still nine-tenths of a second down on the circuit lap record set by Dirk Müller in a Schnitzer Motorsport BMW 320i E46 in 2005.

Within a second of Yvan Muller’s best lap were the independents championship leader Kristian Poulsen in his Engstler Motorsport BMW 320 TC and Tom Coronel’s ROAL Motorsport BMW.

Rob Huff and Alain Menu were next up, just over a second down on their French team-mate.

Menu suffered a puncture late in the session before the RML Chevrolet team wrapped up for the day, skipping the final two hours of testing.

Hungarian driver Norbert Michelisz wound up eighth fastest despite missing the early part of the day with an oil leak in his Zengo Motorsport BMW 320 TC.

Robert Dahlgren was the only car running without a 1.6 turbocharged engine on the test day. The Volvo Polestar Racing driver set a best lap of 2:01.941 around the fast Monza circuit, just shy of two-seconds down on Yvan Muller’s best.

Just outside the top ten were the two Bamboo Engineering Chevrolets of Darryl O’Young and Yukinori Taniguchi, as well as Marchy Lee’s BMW 320 TC.

SUNRED did not take part in the session, with the Spanish team setting up after their private test yesterday. The team have been hard at work repairing Fredy Barth’s car after his big accident at Zolder, as well as preparing a new car for Danish independent driver Michel Nykjaer.

The team have brought six cars fitted with the turbo-diesel powerplant to the circuit, with members of the team confirming that they have run out of time to get the new 1.6 turbo ready for its debut this weekend.

No track activity will take place tomorrow for the WTCC teams and drivers, with the first official Free Practice session scheduled for 9:00 CET on Saturday.