José María López continues practice domination at Spa

FIA World Touring Car Championship points leader José María López was fastest again for the third consecutive practice session at the Spa-Francorchamps circuit, leading the Campos Racing Chevrolet Cruze of French driver Hugo Valente in the final practice ahead of qualifying.

The 31-year-old set his best time in the final ten minutes of the session on a final qualifying practice run, setting his best time of 2:24.561 on his first lap, with a 2:24.8 as his second lap despite a mistake in the third sector.

In the second part of qualifying later today, the drivers will only have time for one run on one set of tyres, which can consist of one or two laps, with the session just ten minutes long.

Hugo Valente set a late improvement to go second quickest in the Campos Racing Chevrolet Cruze, to split the Citroëns, with Yvan Muller third ahead of his Chinese team-mate Ma Qing Hua.

Gabriele Tarquini was the fastest of the Honda drivers in fifth, with Valente’s team-mate Dusan Borkovic behind him in sixth.

Gianni Morbidelli ended the session in tenth in the Münnich Motorsport Chevrolet, despite a scare earlier in the session when he stopped at Paul Frere, but was able to get back into the pits.

Numerous drivers were given warnings for cutting the track, mostly on the exit of Eau Rouge, and at Blanchimont, with both Gabriele Tarquini and Yvan Muller having laps deleted.

The Lada drivers stuffled, with Rob Huff ending up fastest of the three in 12th, while in the TC2T class, Franz Engstler was fastest, 18th overall in the Liqui Moly Team Engstler BMW 320 TC, 9.3 seconds off the ultimate pace.

Qualifying is next and takes place at 15:00 CET.