Yvan Muller leads Chevrolet 1-2-3 in Salzburg FP1

RML’s Yvan Muller was fastest of all in the first free practice session at the Salzburgring, obliterating his qualifying lap record from last year with a time over a full second faster. Team-mate Tom Chilton was second fastest with the bamboo-engineering Chevrolet of Alex MacDowall third.

The pace of the Chevrolet was ominous, with Muller consistently setting times in the low 1:26s. Team-mate Tom Chilton was just over four-tenths of a second behind in his first experience of the track with the Chevrolet Cruze, with Alex MacDowall setting a last minute improvement to go third quickest in the bamboo-engineering Chevrolet.

Rob Huff was the fastest non-Chevrolet in fourth. The reigning champion was just half a second off of Muller’s pace in the Münnich Motorsport SEAT León, whilst Norbert Michelisz was fastest of the three Hondas, setting the fifth fastest time in the Civic Super 2000 TC.

The two works cars of Gabriele Tarquini and Tiago Monteiro were outside the top ten in 11th and 14th positions respectively.

James Thompson was tenth fastest in the Lada Granta. Thompson’s last time at this track was in 2010 whilst driving in the European Touring Car Cup where he took pole position for Hartmann Racing.

There were a few minor excursions at Turn 1 with Rob Huff, Franz Engstler and Tom Chilton all cutting the corner or missing the chicane, whilst ROAL Motorsport’s Darryl O’Young was forced to miss the session entirely with a turbo failure on his BMW.

The next practice session will be at 11:45 CET.