Tom Coronel leads Moscow Free Practice 1

The BMW of Dutchman Tom Coronel was fastest in the first practice session on Saturday at the Moscow Raceway, ahead of the last two years’ champions Rob Huff and Yvan Muller.

Coronel’s best time of 1:43.574 was just over a tenth of a second fastest than the Münnich Motorsport SEAT León of Huff with Yvan Muller’s RML Chevrolet Cruze third, two-tenths behind.

There were few improvements in the last ten minutes of the session as the PB Racing BMW of Stefano D’Aste was stuck in the gravel at Turn 10, which saw waved yellow flags out as the car was recovered in the second sector.

A number of drivers were caught out at Turns 1 and 2 as they carried speed through the corners, sliding wide either at Turn 1 or through into Turn 2 including both RML drivers Yvan Muller and Tom Chilton, Nika Racing’s Michel Nykjaer and Campos Racing’s Nikolay Karamyshev.

Tom Coronel also spun his ROAL Motorsport BMW 320 TC around at Turn 14 but was able to continue, with Charles Ng also spinning around his Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW with just a minute to go whilst he was closely following Fernando Monje’s Campos SEAT.

The top Yokohama Trophy driver was Mehdi Bennani, another one of the BMW drivers who was strong in the session in fifth for Proteam, whilst the top Honda was that of Gabriele Tarquini in sixth.

The best placed Lada was that of James Thompson, just outside the top ten in 11th position, seven-tenths of a second off of Coronel’s pace and setting the same time as Tuenti Racing’s Pepe Oriola.

Nikolay Karamyshev featured in the top ten in the Campos Racing SEAT León WTCC, but will have the advantage of having more new tyres to run throughout the weekend on his WTCC debut.

The next 30 minute practice session takes place at 12pm local time (10am CET).