Yvan Muller leads Citroën 1-2-3 in testing in Morocco
Citroën dominated the first session of the 2014 FIA World Touring Car Championship, with four-time champion Yvan Muller leading José María López by just under half a second, with World Rally Championship convert Sébastien Loeb third, just six-tenths of a second behind.
The three Citroëns led the way throughout the 30 minute session at the Moulay El Hassan circuit to the south of Marrakech. López set the pace early on, with Muller moving to the top with just over ten minutes to go with a time of 1:44.513.
López still finished second in his first outing at the Moroccan circuit, as it is also for Loeb, who finished third, 0.648 behind Muller.
The fastest non-Citroën was that of Frenchman Hugo Valente. The Campos Racing driver set a time of 1:46.470, a whole 1.9 seconds down on Muller’s time, with the Honda of Tiago Monteiro fifth.
Rob Huff made sure all four manufacturers were at least represented in the top six. The 34-year-old was 2.2 seconds slower than Muller on his first outing for Lada in the WTCC, while team-mates James Thompson and Mikhail Kozlovskiy spent more time in the pits than the 2012 champion during the session.
The session was incident free, although a yellow flag for an undisclosed reason in sector two during the final stages spoiled the final flying lap for Yvan Muller, who was set to go faster.
Franz Engstler was the fastest of the TC2T class runners in his Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW 320 TC, setting the 16th fastest time, six seconds off the ultimate pace.
The next session is Free Practice 1 at 09:00 WEST/10:00 CET tomorrow.
