Citroën dominate twice aborted FP1 at the Salzburgring

Citroën Total WTCC took the top three spots with championship leader José María López leading Yvan Muller and Sébastien Loeb, with Tom Coronel the closest to the Citroëns in fourth in his Chevrolet.

The Citroëns were strong throughout the session with first Loeb and then Muller taking the top spot in the time sheets during the first few minutes, with López pulling out the best lap of the weekend so far of 1:22.771 at the ten minute mark.

The session was first stopped when Liqui Moly Team Engstler driver Pasquale Di Sabatino crashed off at Turn 9, spinning his BMW around when he missed his braking point and crashing into the barriers nose first.

The session was held up for over ten minutes as the car was recovered, with the session resuming with 17 minutes to go.

The Citroëns didn’t change positions after that, but P4 changed hands with Norbert Michelisz for the Zengõ Honda team went fourth quickest, soon replaced by Tom Coronel in the ROAL Motorsport Chevrolet Cruze, with Hugo Valente making a late improvement to go fifth.

With one minute to go, the session was red flagged again and not resumed after Mikhail Kozlovskiy’s Lada Granta ground to a halt at the exit of Turn 5.

A lot of the teams were practicing slipstreaming at the circuit, the circuit where slipstreaming is the most important on the whole calendar. There were a few errors, with Hugo Valente locking up and hitting the tyre barriers at Turn 1 whilst receiving a tow from team-mate Dusan Borkovic, and with Lada driver James Thompson almost running into the back of the Honda of Gabriele Tarquini early in the session.

The second free practice session takes place at 11:00 CET.