Yvan Muller on top again in final practice in Brazil

Yvan Muller was fastest again in the final practice session ahead of qualifying in his Chevrolet Cruze. The Frenchman led team-mates Rob Huff and Alain Menu, with Gabriele Tarquini the closest to the Chevrolets in fourth.

Rob Huff was the fastest of all the drivers on the first run, but Yvan Muller took over from his second lap, and then improved once again in the session to end up fastest of all with a time of 1:23.124. The time was slower than the time he set in FP1 and yesterday’s test session as the heat levels rose.

The session was generally incident free, with just a few brief excursions for Charles Ng and Stefano D’Aste early in the session in their BMWs, and then for Rob Huff later on as the Briton was pushing.

Alain Menu briefly took over as the fastest driver just after the chequered flag had waved with a sensational lap time of 1:21.186 – but it turned out it was a timing glitch rather than the Swiss having found two seconds somewhere on his team-mates, and he was restored to third by the time-keepers.

Tiago Monteiro found extra pace in the second session and joined future Honda team-mate Tarquini ahead of the two Bamboo Chevrolets with the fifth fastest time, with Alex MacDowall and Michel Nykjaer classified in sixth and seventh positions; MacDowall was therefore the fastest of the independents’ trophy drivers.

Tom Boardman was an impressive eighth place in the SEAT León WTCC in his second race meeting with the new 1.6 turbo engine, with Tom Coronel the fastest of the BMWs in ninth and Tom Chilton completing the top ten in Arena Motorsport’s Ford Focus S2000 TC.

Qualifying is next and starts at 16:00 local time (21:00 CET).