Yvan Muller leads Tom Chilton in Sonoma FP1

Yvan Muller was fastest for Chevrolet in the Saturday free practice session ahead of the Arena Motorsport Ford of Tom Chilton, in a session which was briefly interrupted by a red flag.

The Championship leader set the benchmark early on and was the first driver to break into the 1:46s this weekend, two seconds faster than Bamboo Engineering’s Alex MacDowall’s time from yesterday.

Muller appeared to have the pace over everyone, until Tom Chilton went second fastest in the Arena Motorsport-run Ford Focus, just 0.015 seconds behind Muller. Muller found another four-hundredths of a second later in the session, whilst Alain Menu was the only other driver in the 1:46s in third.

Gabriele Tarquini was the fastest of the SEATs in fourth, and Norbert Michelisz the fastest independent and BMW driver in fifth, in a session where the BMWs generally struggled, with Wiechers-Sport’s Stefano D’Aste having offs at Turns 2 and 4, and Franz Engstler hitting the wall at Turn 8A at the end of the session.

The two ROAL Motorsport BMWs of Tom Coronel and Alberto Cerqui made contact early in the session, with Coronel forced to miss the bulk of the session with front-end damage.

The session was briefly red flagged with eight minutes to go after Alex MacDowall buried his Chevrolet Cruze into the gravel at Turn 2, but was able to get back to the pits. The delay allowed team-mate Robb Holland to join the session and set a single timed lap, as the American was waiting for a replacement FIA approved crash helmet as his usual helmet is in the UK where he has been racing in the BTCC.