Photo: WTCC Media

Gabriele Tarquini fastest in Portimão FP1

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Gabriele Tarquini was fastest in the first free practice session at Portimao, almost half a second clear of the Chevrolet of reigning champion Yvan Muller.

At the start of the session it was the ‘Vaillante’ of Alain Menu who was fastest before Yvan Muller improved in his own Chevrolet Cruze, setting a time of 1:55.141 to break the WTCC track record set by Tiago Monteiro two years ago in the SEAT León TDI.

It wasn’t good enough though to keep him on top of the times though, with Gabriele Tarquini leaving it late in the session to appear and go fastest of all on his first run in the SEAT León WTCC. The Italian improved again to finish the session as the only driver under 1m 55 with a time of 1:54.572.

Yvan Muller was second fastest with Alain Menu third and Rob Huff fourth to see all three Chevrolets line-up behind the SEAT driver.

Norbert Michelisz was the fastest independent driver in fifth place in the Zengõ Motorsport BMW 320 TC, ahead of the two ROAL Motorsport BMWs with Alberto Cerqui faster than Tom Coronel.

James Nash was eighth fastest on his and Arena Motorsport’s first time at Portimão in the Ford Focus, with James Thompson completing the top ten in the Lada Granta Sport, making its second appearance of the season this weekend.

Local driver Tiago Monteiro in the underpowered SR León 1.6T was 17th fastest, 2.5 seconds down and slower than his own previous record in the SEAT León TDI, whilst Tom Boardman was 21st in his first run with the SEAT Sport 1.6 turbo engine, three-seconds down on Tarquini.

The next session is Free Practice 2 at 12:10 WEST/BST.