Photo: TCR Media

Gianni Morbidelli dominant in Bruriam Free Practice

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Gianni Morbidelli dominated the first Free Practice session at Buriram, Thailand. The WestCoast Racing driver was over half a second quicker than title challenger Pepe Oriola, and the only driver below the 1’44 barrier. Sergey Afanasyev came third in his Craft-Bamboo Lukoil SEAT.

After the usual shakedown runs, it became clear quite soon in the session that Morbidelli would set the pace as the Honda driver took the lead eight minutes into the session and never left it.

Hugo Valente showed very good progress in the Campos Racing Opel Astra, initially running as high as second before finishing in sixth, still a remarkable improvement compared to yesterday’s testing session.

Craft-Bamboo Lukoil’s Pepe Oriola and Jordi Gené, who set the pace yesterday in testing, only went out on track midway through the session, but the Spanish duo was not able to know Morbidelli off the lead.

Robb Holland was only able to complete a handful of laps before his FRD Ford Focus stopped on the track with a technical issue.

Later on the Craft-Bamboo squad mounted a serious challenge to the Honda’s lead, but leading driver Pepe Oriola went no further than more than half a second behind the ‘Step 2’ Civic. Sergey Afanasyev finished a good third ahead of Jordi Gené, who suffered from traffic issues during the session. René Munnich came fifth ahead of Valente, with WestCoast’s Kevin Gleason in seventh with his 20 kilos of ballast.

Loris Hezemans was the leading driver at Target Competition, with championship leader Stefano Comini in tenth behind Craft-Bamboo’s Munkong Sathienthirakul, more easily nicknamed as ‘Turbo’, who is part of the team’s TCR Asia Series effort. Tenth in the TCR International Series is therefore Mikhail Grachev in his Liqui Moly Team Engstler Volkswagen, while Lorenzo Veglia, who finished right behind his team-mate, was called to report to race control after repeatedly receiving track limits warnings.

Free Practice 2 is scheduled for 11.00 local time and will last 30 minutes as usual.