Gianni Morbidelli fastest in Bahrain Free Practice 2
Gianni Morbidelli put his Honda Civic TCR on top in Free Practice 2 in Bahrain. The Italian clocked an interesting 2:13.347, although it was not quicker than this morning’s time set by Pepe Oriola.
This morning’s leader came home second ahead of Jean-Karl Vernay’s Volkswagen Golf Gti TCR, making it three different manufacturers in the top three places. The Spaniard and the Frenchman were only separated by one hundredth, meaning the Leopard Racing Golf Gti TCR seems to be getting closer to the performance of the sister SEAT León.
The Leopard Racing Golfs had led earlier on, but Morbidelli took the lead shortly after that and never left it. A red flag was exposed when Target Competition’s Jordi Oriola and Andrea Belicchi went off almost simoultaneously. Besides the issues of the Astras, Attila Tassi’s off sent the Hungarian teenager’s SEAT into the wall and triggered the flag directly.
When the session resumed the final classification started taking shape, with Oriola and Vernay followed by James Nash, who improved massively from this morning’s session. Kevin Gleason also improved on his lap time in his WestCoast Racing Honda, with team-mate Aku Pellinen three tenths off.
Dusan Borkovic came home seventh in his B3 Racing SEAT, just ahead of defending champion Stefano Comini, who made it back in the top ten after this morning’s struggles. Davit Kajaia’s Liqui Moly Team Engstler Golf and and Mat’O Homola’s SEAT completed the top ten.
The new Alfa Romeo Giulietta TCR driven by Michela Cerruti made a massive improvement of almost three seconds compared to this morning and ended up eleventh, whereas Luigi Ferrara continues to struggle in his Subaru WRX STi TCR.
Jordi Oriola was eventually able to rejoin the track and put the Opel Astra TCR as high as 12th, which is the best performance of the weekend so far, almost three second off the pace.
Action resumes tomorrow for Qualifying, which is scheduled for 13.00 local time.
