Sébastien Loeb on top in FP2 as Hugo Valente wrecks
Sébastien Loeb was fastest in the second and final free practice session at the Salzburgring in his Citroën C-Elysée, while Campos Racing’s Hugo Valente crashed out heavily early in the session and will miss qualifying and perhaps the races this weekend as well.
Loeb left it to the final moments of the session to go fastest of all, outpacing team-mate José María López by just over a tenth of a second, with Yvan Muller putting in a late improvement to go third, securing another Citroën 1-2-3.
The session was again red flagged, as was yesterday’s test and this morning’s practice, after Hugo Valente crashed off at Turn 9. The 21-year-old Frenchman was in the tow of Sébastien Loeb’s Citroën, where he lost downforce and touched the grass on the inside of the corner, which sent him out wide across the track, spinning on the dust at the exit and into the barriers hard where his Chevrolet Cruze suffered major front-end damage.
The car’s damage is too extensive to be repaired for qualifying, and the team will assess whether they can repair the car for the first race which is at 10am CET tomorrow morning.
The rest of the session was incident free, with Gianni Morbidelli briefly moving up to the top spot in his Münnich Motorsport Chevrolet before the Citroëns took over.
Mikhail Kozlovskiy’s Lada Granta also ended the session stuck on the circuit, stopping on the escape road at Turn 3, but the session was able to continue unhindered.
The next session is qualifying at 14:30 CET.
