Changing weather spoiled Estoril free practice

The changing weather conditions, with rain starting to fall on the Estoril circuit shortly before the first free practice session started, meant teams were not able to exploit the track time properly, with some cars even avoiding going out on track as good weather is forecast for Saturday and Sunday.

Defending champion Stefano Comini pushed in his Leopard Racing Volkswagen Golf Gti TCR despite the tricky conditions: “It looks like I was the only on wanting to have fun amongst the puddles, and I did, but nobody else was responding,” said the Swiss.

With the track not fully wet nor fully dry, Top Run’s Luca Rangoni could only sample the torque of his Subaru WRX STi TCR: “It’s a pity because we wanted to try a couple of things and the conditions prevented any technical work,” said the Italian. “It wasn’t even wet enough to have some interesting indications for wet conditions. We will have to do all the work tomorrow. The only thing I can say is that in these peculiar conditions, the car had very good torque.”

After his accident in Bahrain, B3 Racing’s Attila Tassi took the opportunity to gain some experience at the wheel of his SEAT León TCR: “The conditions were clearly not indicative,” admitted the Hungarian. “I still pushed a little bit to acquire some experience. It was slippery but quite fun.”

Track action will resume tomorrow at 10.15 local time for the second free practice session.