Alain Menu leads the way in Free Practice 1

Chevrolet’s Alain Menu was fastest of all in a wet free practice session at Macau, as the rain seemed to enhance the team’s performance rather than equalise it, with Championship contenders Yvan Muller and Rob Huff second and third fastest.

Tiago Monteiro was again the quickest of the SUNRED drivers in fourth, albeit 2.564 seconds down on Menu’s time with Swiss team-mate Fredy Barth the fastest independent challenger in fifth overall.

Huff and Menu exchanges fastest times several times in the session as the circuit slowly dried, though the times were still far off the dry running pace and of the times that were seen yesterday.

The session was also relatively uneventful, with Kristian Poulsen spinning off without damage at Moorish Hill with a few minutes to go.

Tom Coronel was the only car to pick up damage, crashing his ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC off at the final corner, R Bend, on his final lap after the chequered flag had fallen. The Dutch driver then reversed his car the short distance back to the pit entrance to bring the car in for repairs ahead of Free Practice 2, which takes place at 12:15 local time.

André Couto was able to set some laps for the first time this weekend in in the SR León 1.6T and was the fastest of the five Macanese drivers entered for the event in 16th.

Lo Ka Chun’s Peugeot 308 and Kwok Le Keong’s Chevrolet Lacetti didn’t take part in the session.