Photo: TCR Media

Dusan Borkovic tops shortened Estoril second free practice

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Dusan Borkovic led the way in the second free practice session at Estoril, Portugal. The Serbian came home ahead of fellow SEAT driver Pepe Oriola in the Craft-Bamboo Lukoil car, with B3 Racing team-mate Mat’o Homola in third.

Stefano Comini initially set the pace in the Volkswagen Golf Gti TCR, but was subsequently demoted by Oriola. Halfway through the session Dusan Borkovic went fastest and never left the lead, while his rivals got closer and closer but still not enough to demote him from the top of the time sheets.

Oriola and Homola were separated by as little as 0.008s in second and third respectively, with Craft-Bamboo Lukoil’s Sergey Afanasyev demoting WestCoast Racing’s Gianni Morbidelli from fourth in the final stages of the session. The Honda driver, who steadily improved during the session, came home ahead of Leopard Racing’s Jean-Karl Vernay, with Aku Pellinen seventh in the Honda Civic TCR.

Attila Tassi fought for top five positions for most of the session, but ended up eighth in the B3 Racing SEAT, ahead of Kevin Gleason’s Honda and Davit Kajaia, who completed the top ten in the Liqui Moly Team Engstler Volkswagen Golf.

Comini finished eleventh, although just seven tenths shy of Borkovic, while Luca Rangoni finished 15th with a substantial 2.3s gap from the lead in his Top Run Subaru WRX STi TCR. Michela Cerruti, who suffered from engine gremlins yesterday, came home just behind Rangoni, eight tenths slower than the Subaru. James Nash only performed an outlap in the Craft-Bamboo Lukoil SEAT due to the tyres shortage suffered by all teams.

The session was shortened due to an accident in the previous GT Open qualifying session, which led to a lengthy red flag to recover a damaged Aston Martin.

Qualifying is scheduled for 16.40 local time.