Nicki Thiim tops short shakedown test in Portugal
Liqui Moly Team Engstler’s Nicki Thiim continued a perfect score this weekend after topping Friday testing, both Saturday’s practice sessions, qualifying and now the ten-minute Sunday morning shakedown at the Autodromó Internacional do Algarve.
The Danish driver was slower than team-mate Kelvin van der Linde after one lap in this morning’s session, but improved on his second and third laps to end up fastest of all with a time of 1:54.634 in the Audi TT Coupé, just over half a second clear of his South African team-mate for the weekend.
Just eight cars of the 16 due to take part in today’s races opted to take part in the session, with all of Team Craft-Bamboo Lukoil’s drivers skipping the non-compulsory session. Mikhail Grachev made it an Engstler 1-2-3 with the third fastest time in his SEAT León, which was only delivered to the track at lunchtime on Saturday.
Michel Nykjaer was the only one of Target Competition’s SEATs to take to the track during the shakedown and was fourth quickest, almost a second down on Thiim’s time.
José Monroy and Francisco Mora got some running in the two one-off entry Veloso Motorsport SEATs and finished fifth and sixth, with Oscar Nogués seventh in the Campos Racing Opel Astra OPC and with Igor Skuz the only one of WestCoast Racing’s drivers to participate in the Honda Civic TCR finishing eighth and last.
The first race starts at 12:35 WEST / 13:35 CET with Thiim on pole position ahead of the two Craft-Bamboo SEATs of Jordi Gené and Pepe Oriola.
