Photo: WTCC Media

Alain Menu fastest in Suzuka testing

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Chevrolet driver Alain Menu emerged as the fastest in the first official test session at Suzuka in the World Touring Car Championship, pipping Volvo’s Robert Dahlgren in the dying moments of the session.

Menu’s best lap of 53.722 was just over a tenth of a second quicker than Dahlgren in the Volvo C30, whilst Rob Huff was third fastest in his Chevrolet Cruze.

Tiago Monteiro was the fastest of the SUNRED drivers in fourth place, just over half a second down on Menu, with Championship leader Yvan Muller’s Chevrolet in fifth.

The fastest BMW was that of ROAL Motorsport’s Tom Coronel in sixth, whilst Toshi Arai was eighth fastest on his first appearance in the Championship in Chevrolet’s fourth Cruze 1.6T.

Darryl O’Young was the fastest of the independent drivers in ninth place in the Bamboo Engineering-run Chevrolet, with Colin Turkington next up in 10th in the Wiechers/WSR BMW 320 TC.

Pepe Oriola had the least running in the session with just nine laps and ended up 23rd of the 24 cars, 3.3s off the pace, whilst Japanese driver Masaki Kano set the most laps in the session in his Engstler Motorsport-run BMW 320 TC, and finished up 21st, 2.6s down.

There’s no more running on Friday, the next session is Free Practice 1 on Saturday morning at 9:30 local time.